Mesmerized (14 page)

“There was some gold in the headdress, as well.”

“Of course one would dress as a lady for haunting a place—you may have noticed how rarely ghosts are said to be a farmer or tanner or goldsmith,” Olivia said.

Stephen smiled faintly at her statement. “Now that you have placed our lady in time, would you care to take one of these histories off my hands?”

“Of course.” Olivia set aside her tome and picked up the one lying on Stephen’s desk. Idly she flipped back to the time of the Conquest and began to move forward. “Do we know when this house came to be named Blackhope?” She covered a yawn with her hand.

“I have no idea. Obviously Belinda’s tutor was more concerned with the history of this place than any of mine ever were. I don’t really know much about it before our family took it over. Somewhere, I know, there’s a history of the St. Legers, but it won’t help us learn about this house before the time of the Martyrs.”

They began to read again, and the room was silent. It was some minutes before Stephen looked up from his reading with a sigh and glanced across at Olivia. She was sitting in the wing chair, feet curled up under
her, the book she had been studying lying open in her lap and her head resting against one of the wings of the chair, her eyes closed. Her breasts rose and fell in the slow rhythm of sleep.

Stephen smiled, watching her. There was something about her, he thought, that fascinated him. He found himself thinking about her more and more frequently, and he looked forward to seeing her. She looked lovely asleep, soft and innocent, but he liked, too, the snap of intelligence and wit in her brown eyes, the smile that so often curved her lips, the quick, compact way she moved. He had apologized for kissing her the other day because it had been the gentlemanly thing to do; he scarcely knew her and should not be making advances toward her. However, he did not regret it in the slightest. He had, in fact, enjoyed the kiss thoroughly.

Olivia Moreland stirred his blood; she had from the moment he met her. When he had looked into her eyes that first night, a sizzle had run down through him, a feeling that was not only desire but also some sort of recognition. There were romantics who talked of two people’s souls crying out to each other; he had always dismissed such talk as twaddle, but after that moment, he was not so sure. In some strange way, he had felt almost as if he knew her, although that clearly was impossible. There were others, he knew, who would laugh and say that what he felt for her was desire, pure and simple—a physical attraction, a
chemical reaction. But he was not entirely sure that that was an adequate explanation, either.

He rose and walked softly across the floor to the small sofa and picked up a crocheted afghan that lay folded decoratively across the back of it. He came back on silent feet to Olivia’s chair and laid the small blanket gently over her. She stirred a little and snuggled into the warmth of the cover. He stood looking down at her for a moment, then returned to his seat behind the desk.

Laying the book flat, he propped his elbow on the desk and his forehead on his hand and began reading again. Time passed, and his lids grew heavy. He blinked and started reading again, then stopped again, rubbing his hand across his face. He curled an arm across the book and laid his head down on it.

He leaned against the wall, its sun-touched stone warm against his back, and surveyed the bailey of the castle before him. He pretended to watch the activity, but his focus was all on
her.
She walked down the steps and across the courtyard, a basket hooked over her arm, a ring of keys in her hand. She was not wearing her elegant clothes, merely a plain blue tunic and undergown, and a simple cloth veil on her head. The girdle just above her hips was plaited leather, not gold or silver. But she looked as beautiful as ever to him. His skin tingled for her; his guts clenched in desire.

He knew she could never be his. She was forbidden
to him, a married woman and, moreover, married to the man to whom he had sworn fealty.

He watched as she entered the storage building, then swung his gaze around the courtyard. Two servant girls were tending to a tub of wash, and farther away, children chased a hen. Two guards stood at the gates, but there were no men-at-arms idling where their commander could see them. No one watched him.

He strolled away from the gate, moving to the side of the keep. He knew he should not do what he was doing. It was dishonorable, and he hated himself for his disloyalty. But he could not stop himself; he could not stay away from her.

When he was out of sight of the few people in the courtyard, he turned and walked into the same building into which she had gone. It was much dimmer in here, lit only by sunlight creeping in through the cracks of the wooden shutters and door. The door into the cellars stood open, flung back against the floor. There was a dim light below. He moved cautiously down the stairs and into the storage room, making his way through the casks and barrels and crates toward the torch, thrust into an iron holder on the wall.

She was opening a barrel and peering inside when she heard the sound of his steps, and she turned, a look on her face that was part surprise and part hope. When she saw him, a smile broke across her face.

“Sir John!” She started toward him, her eyes
alight, then stopped, guilt settling on her face. “We should not—you must not risk it.”

He thought that he would risk all for her, but he did not say it. Words, he knew, were easy. He came up to her. Up close, he could see the bruise on her cheek, and his stomach tightened within him.

He reached up and laid a gentle finger beside the bruise. “Did Sir Raymond put this there?” His voice sounded like ground glass, and fury quivered in him.

She nodded, looking away from him, ashamed. She shrugged. “It is nothing. It was not—”

“I hate him!” His voice lashed out. “He is a cruel, godless man. I would like to kill him for hurting you.”

He bent and gently brushed his lips against the bruise.

A little sigh, part pleasure, part sorrow, escaped her lips. “But you cannot. He is your liege lord, and you are sworn to protect him.”

“I would I had sworn to any other man.”

“Then I would never have met you,” she reminded him. Her eyes here in the dim light were dark, but he knew their cornflower-blue color well. They had pierced his heart many months before.

“I hate the way he so boldly keeps his mistress in the castle. It is shameful, an insult to you. I have seen the slut Elwena flaunting herself about.”

“Nay.” She laid a finger against his lips, smiling and shaking her head. “It does not matter.”

“It matters to me.” He looked down at her, love and desire coursing through him. He raised his hands
to her face, smoothing them over her soft skin. “Alys…”

He moved his hands back, pushing aside the simple veil and sinking them into the pale flaxen mass of her hair. She looked up at him, her lips partly open, her breath rushing in and out. He bent and kissed her, unable to hold back. Pleasure rushed through him like a torrent, a roiling blend of heat and passion and tenderness.

But now, as it happened in dreams, the woman in his arms changed. Suddenly she was Olivia, and it was Stephen who was holding her, not Sir John. Her mouth was warm and damp, her body eagerly clinging to his. Passion surged in him as his hands roamed her soft flesh.

There was a sharp noise; he wasn’t sure what it had been, only that it jerked him out of his dream. Stephen awoke with a gasp, his body still boiling with lust. Blinking, confused and dazed with passion, he slowly raised his head.

A few feet away from him, Olivia was sitting straight up in her chair, the book that had been lying in her lap now on the floor at her feet. She was wide-awake and staring at him, her mouth, soft with passion, opened in a startled “O.” Her brown eyes were luminous with desire, her cheeks flushed. Yet at the same time, there was a look on her face of mingled surprise and embarrassment.

He gazed at her, unable to speak, and suddenly,
with a jolt, he was sure somehow that she knew what he had been dreaming. “Olivia…”

She let out a strangled noise and jumped to her feet, the light blanket falling unnoticed to her feet, then turned and ran out the door.

Olivia sought out Tom Quick early the next morning and explained to him her need to have Mr. Babington’s room searched for the presence of a black robe such as the “ghost” in the garden had worn the day before.

That task done, she spent the rest of the day assiduously avoiding Stephen. When she saw him in the sitting room with the others later in the morning, she quickly turned and went for a walk in the garden. Though she disliked causing extra work for any of the servants, she had Joan bring her midday meal up to her room on a tray, and then she spent the rest of the afternoon cooped up in her room reading a long and rather boring novel she found there.

The only break in the monotony came when Tom reported to her on his search. He had found nothing untoward in Mr. Babington’s room, including a black robe. His words did not surprise her. After they had lost Babington the night before in their amazement over seeing “Lady Alys,” she had been sure that Babington would retrieve the incriminating evidence from wherever he had hidden it and get rid of it. Still, she had hoped that Babington might have been care
less enough to store it in his room, so Tom’s news made her spirits sink even lower.

She would have to tell Stephen, of course, about the results of Tom’s search or, rather, the lack of them. But she thought surely that task could be put off until tomorrow. She simply could not face him today—not after that bizarre, licentious dream she had had last night.

It was bad enough that she had fallen asleep in Stephen’s study. It was not the sort of thing ladies were supposed to do. Besides, it was embarrassing. Had he thought her rude and uncouth? Had her hair been mussed? Had she talked in her sleep? Worse yet, what if she had snored?

But none of that was as bad as the dream she had had. She had once again dreamed of the medieval woman and man whom she had seen in her dream the other afternoon, the very same woman whom she and Stephen had seen in the great hall. She supposed that was natural enough, as her head had been filled with the woman and the earlier dream, but it still disturbed her to have seen her again. At first it had been like the other dream, as if she were watching a play, and then it had seemed somehow as if she herself was the woman—Alys, he called her—who was speaking and looking at the knight. They had started kissing, and she had felt the onrush of desire, the throbbing hunger that centered in her loins and radiated out through her body.

And then, somehow, she was no longer the medi
eval lady but herself again, and the man was not the medieval knight, but Stephen. And the heat and passion had been even more intense. She had been alive with sensation, every inch of her tingling and aware. She had ached for him, thrilled to his kiss…his touch…. Even thinking about it the next day brought a flush of heat that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with desire.

The passion had grown so strong, the sensations so intense, that finally she had jolted out of her dream and sat straight up, the heavy book in her lap sliding down to the floor with a bang. She had stared at Stephen, dazed and astonished, unable for an instant to separate reality from dream, her loins still heavy with desire.

Then he had raised his head and looked straight at her, and his face had been slack with passion, his eyes hungry and hot. And she had been certain in that instant that he knew exactly what she had been dreaming. Stunned, all she had been able to do was run away.

And she had continued doing so all day long.

She knew, of course, that it was impossible for him to have known what she was dreaming. He wouldn’t even have seen her face as she dreamed or heard her say anything revealing, for he obviously had been asleep also, his head resting on his arm on his desk.

But she could not forget the look of passion on his face or the way his eyes had bored into hers. In that moment she had been certain he had seen everything
inside her, had felt the blood coursing wildly through her veins, heard the breath coming sharp and fast in her throat, that he had known what lay in her heart and mind.

Since what lay inside her was lust for him, she was humiliated, sure that he must think her forward, licentious, foolish. And no matter how many times she reminded herself that he could not possibly have known, still she could not bring herself to look him in the eyes.

Olivia knew it would be rude to excuse herself from supper altogether unless she were ill, but fortunately, it was impossible for Stephen to actually hold a conversation with her there. Afterward, however, he managed to catch her as she left the room.

“Olivia…”

She glanced at him briefly, then away. He looked frowning and serious, and it made her stomach churn with anxiety. “I, um, you must excuse me,” she said quickly. “I have a bit of a headache, so I’m going to retire early tonight.”