Pleasured (32 page)

“But, Damon, think. You are an earl. You cannot marry me.”

He smiled, a gleam entering his eye that told her he knew he had won. “Your mistake, my love. I
am
an earl. And I do as I please.”

“But I am nobody!”

“You are Red Meg Munro.”

“All your friends . . . your mother . . . everyone will be appalled. You know what your sister-in-law thought of me. And the others, the Honorable Harry Twitting-something and his wife.”

Damon chuckled. “It may surprise you to learn that my first requirement in a wife is not the approval of either my former sister-in-law or Harry Twitherington-Smythe.” He bent and nuzzled the crook of her neck. “Say yes, Meg.”

“But Lynette—”

“Adores you. She will think I am a clever fellow to have caught you.”

Meg could not hold back a breathy laugh as his lips nibbled across her collarbone. “Stop. You make it hard to think.”

“I intend to.” He took one earlobe between his teeth and delicately worried it.

“Damon . . .” Meg sagged against him, the sweetly familiar throbbing beginning between her legs.

“You needn’t think. Just feel.” He skimmed his fingertips down her spine and teased along the line of her buttocks, slipping in between her legs. “I want you. I want to have you with me always.” The stroke of his fingers was almost unbearably light, and she shivered. “Say yes, Meg. Tell me you want the same.”

“Yes,” she whispered, kissing his skin. “Yes, oh, Damon, yes.”

He took her to the ground with him, and where before their lovemaking had been all fire and heat and urgency, this was all tenderness, love given and taken in equal measure. Their kisses were sweet and lingering, pleasure delayed as they aroused and explored, building the hunger within them, and when at last he slid inside her, he laced his fingers through hers, pulling her arms above her head, and he gazed into her eyes as he slowly pushed them both to the shimmering peak. When at last he saw the ecstasy haze her eyes, it seized him, too, and they both soared into the joyous fire.

They lay nestled on the floor some hours later, having dozed, then wakened. Damon had turned the wick of their lantern low to conserve the light, and the room was barely lit. Meg had no idea what time it was or how long had passed, and she did not care. She could have lain like this forever, she thought, cradled in love.

“I wonder if they lay here,” she mused, stroking her hand idly up and down Damon’s arm. “Faye and the man she loved.”

“I would not be surprised.” He rose on his side, bracing himself on his elbow, and gazed down at Meg. He trailed his thumb down the center line of her chest. “If he felt as I do, he would have doubtless seized the opportunity whenever, wherever, it arose.” He traced the rise of her hip bone. “Though I cannot believe she could have been as beautiful as you.”

“More so, according to all who knew her.”

“Memory is kind.”

“Damon . . .”

“Hmm?” he murmured, watching his finger circle her nipple, making the pinkish bud tighten.

“Why did you talk to Coll?” She took his chin, turning his head so that he looked in her face. “Did you ask his permission to marry me?”

“Oh, that.” Damon’s expression turned wary. “Well . . . yes. I know you pride yourself on your independence, but, dash it, there are just some things one has to do. I could not ask for your hand without telling him, could I?”

“And what if he had said no?” She cocked her eyebrow.

“I would have had to resign myself to your brother’s
dislike, I suppose.” He grinned at her. “You cannot think I would have given up if he disliked it.”

“What did Coll say when you asked him?”

Damon tilted his head consideringly. “I believe his exact words were ‘Not another bloody Sassenach.’ ”

Meg burst into laughter. “That sounds like Coll.”

“Then he said that if I hurt you, he would break me, bone by bone. You are a violent lot, you Scots.”

Meg snorted. “Says the man who threatened to tear Coll limb from limb a little while ago.”

“Yes, well . . . you can drive a man to his breaking point. After that, Coll informed me that what he thought meant nothing, as you would do exactly as you pleased. Of course, I knew that already. But still, one must observe the proprieties. And he and I had talked about—well, I wanted him to know, to see, that I intended to treat you with the utmost honor.”

“What do you mean, you and he had talked? Have you had another bout with him? And the two of you kept it hidden from me?”

“No, no, you need not scold. We did not fight. We did not even argue, not really. I offered him the position of estate manager at Duncally.”

Meg said nothing, merely gaped at him.

“I thought of it that day you and I talked about it. It seemed the obvious thing. All that stood in the way was my pride—and I’ve learned since I came here to swallow that. He’ll take it eventually. People will say I am a lovesick fool whose wife rules him, no doubt. But I shall have to put up with it, I suppose, since it’s the truth.” He cast a sideways grin
at her and bent to kiss the tip of her breast. “I am, after all, a slave to your wishes.”

Meg placed her hands against his chest, holding him off as he leaned toward her again. “Wait. Are you saying Coll accepted the job?”

“Of course not. He said no, along with a number of other, more uncomplimentary things. But I daresay I will persuade him eventually. I have a way of wearing people down. And it is, after all, his duty to the people of the glen, isn’t it?”

“You
are
sly.” Meg laughed.

“I have learned how to handle a Munro.”

“Oh, have you now?” Meg cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I have.” He slipped his hand down her body and in between her legs, gently teasing until she was slick and throbbing. “You see?” He grinned at her.

“You’re very cocksure.” Meg rose, pushing him onto his back. He went with her movement, his eyes sharpening in anticipation. “Two can play at that game, my lord.”

She took him in her hand, stroking him, and he let out a soft hum, his lids drooping. He looked at her with hot, dreamy eyes. “I yield, my lady. You are the master of this game.”

Damon pulled her head down and kissed her, rolling her onto her back.

“Ow!”

Damon’s head snapped up and he pulled back. “What? Did I hurt you? Or are you merely happy again?”

“No.” She grimaced at him. “Something jabbed me.” She reached behind her, feeling along the dirt. “There is something here.”

Her eyes lit, and she sat up, turning to look at the ground
where she had lain. A thick layer of dirt and grit covered the stone surface, and poking up from it were the tips of two metal tines. Meg bent closer, rubbing with her finger at the dirt caked on them. “Damon, look!”

A glitter of pale yellow and green and gold peeked out of the dirt. She dug at the earth around it until she had exposed the object, and they both stared down at what Meg had uncovered. A piece of parchment lay there, folded and stuck between the tines of a filigreed, golden hair comb.

“My grandmother’s comb!” Meg breathed. “There
were
two of them.” She picked up the comb and gently pulled the paper from its tines. Carefully unfolding the fragile paper, she read the faded lines of ink.

“ ‘My love, I pray you find this well and happy. What you left me is safe; I have hidden it, and you will know where and when to find it. If you have gone on, as my heavy heart fears, it will be there for our child. My time is coming, and I do not fear it, for I pray I will find you waiting for me. I love you with all my heart. Faye.’ ”

“Oh, Damon! How sad.” Tears welled in Meg’s eyes, and she sat back on her heels.

“It is.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek tenderly, then turned back to the spot of earth. “But not, unfortunately, terribly enlightening. Who was this love? And what did she hide? Do you suppose your mother did find it?”

“I don’t know.” Meg brushed away more soil, and Damon joined her.

He dragged his fingers like a rake across the floor beside him. The dirt and silt had built up more beneath the little stone ledge. He touched something smooth and supple. “I found something.” Excitement pulsed in his voice.

“What?” Meg moved over beside him, her tone eager.

“I don’t know, but it feels . . . well, it doesn’t feel like rock.” He clawed at the dirt. “It’s cloth—no, leather.” He carefully worked the object free and held it out to her.

This pouch, thoroughly smeared with mud, was open, the tie that had once closed it gone.

“There’s something here. A mark or something.” He rubbed gently at the mud, and slowly an emblem emerged, a stylized flower.

“Rose!” Meg gasped. “That is the rosette, the symbol on, well, on everything at Baillannan.”

“Oh. So it was just dropped here sometime by one of the Roses.”

“I suppose it could have been. But . . .” Her brain was whirring. She began to dig beneath the ledge, scattering the dirt. “Hah!” She pounced on something, and when she pulled her hand back, it held two round pieces of metal, smeared with dirt. Gold winked from a corner of one. Meg scrubbed at them, clearing the flat sides.

They stared at the coins, large and gold, with the silhouette of a man with flowing hair on one side, Latin words stamped around it. On the other side was a crown and two ovals containing patterns. One pattern Meg recognized as a fleur-de-lis.

“The louis d’or. Gold Louis,” Damon translated. “It’s Louis the Fifteenth; those are the coat of arms of France and Navarre on the back.”

“French coins.”

“French coins from the
last century
.” They looked at each other.

“Oh, my Lord.” Meg sat back on her heels. “It’s the trea
sure. Malcolm Rose’s treasure.” She waggled the remains of the money pouch with the Rose emblem stamped upon it. “There
was
a treasure, and my grandmother hid it.”

Damon nodded. “And your grandfather was—”

Meg whispered, almost in shock, “Malcolm Rose.”

29

T
hough they searched the rest
of the cave till their fingernails were broken and their hands caked in dirt, they found nothing else. It was impossible to tell the time, but as their clothes had mostly dried and the lantern was burning precariously low, they dressed and made their way back down the tunnel to the original cave. The tide had gone out, though water still stood here and there in puddles. It was dawn, the sun just edging above the horizon, and the sea was so calm it was hard to imagine that a violent storm had been here earlier. A soaked rope still wrapped around the rock at the entrance, but all that was left of the dory was a single piece of wood.

Damon sighed and looked down at the water lapping a few inches below the lip of the cave. “It appears it’s a good day for a swim.”

“The water’s calm. But it’s a long way to the loch.”

Damon tossed his jacket on the cave floor beside the lantern, along with his neckcloth and waistcoat, then sat down
to pull off his boots. He studied the cliff that stretched toward the ocean. “Where does that path go?”

Meg followed his pointing finger to the narrow path that ran along the cliff several feet above their heads. “It curves around the headland. See that promontory?” She pointed to the end of the cliff. “That’s the rock where David MacLeod said Faye used to sit and watch the sea. The cliff turns there and runs northward. The land comes down as it goes along and the path turns up a bit, so that it actually comes out atop the cliff. Not far from where you rode down to the beach that day.” She smiled a little at the memory. “But we’d have to get to the path first. It’s above us and a good way away, as well.”

“There’s a bit of a ledge.” Damon gestured toward the cliff face near their feet. “Not wide enough to walk on, but I can hold on with my hands and make my way along it until I reach that rock that juts out. I can climb out there and take the path around the headland.”

“You! And what am I supposed to do while you’re out there clambering about?”

He slanted a look at her. “Sit here where you’re not wet or breaking off a bit of rock and falling into the ocean. I’ll get a boat once I reach the shore and come back for you. If I don’t, then you’ll sit here till someone comes looking for you.”

“Or I’ll go with you.”

“It could be dangerous. I’m a good swimmer.”

“As am I. I grew up beside the loch, and I’ve spent half my life climbing over these rocks. And being smaller, I’m less likely to break off any piece of rock than you are.”

“Oh, the devil.” He scowled. “Come along then; I’m not going to waste my breath arguing with you.”

“That’s a wise decision.”

“But I will go first,” he said darkly.

“Of course.” Meg smiled sweetly. She skinned out of her underlying petticoats, wrapped up their newfound treasures inside the garments, and with Damon’s help stowed them on the ledge above the waterline. Then she pulled the bottom of her skirt up between her legs and firmly hooked it in the waistband.

“At least I shall have a pleasant view as I die,” Damon said, eyeing her bare legs.

With a kiss, he took hold of the rope and slipped into the water, letting out a curse at the chill. With the rope for security, he made his way to the small ledge and tossed the rope back to Meg. She followed. Damon’s plan, as it turned out, was surprisingly easy. Buoyed by the salt water and with fewer clothes weighing them down, they “walked” their hands along the ledge and climbed out at the wider jut of rock. The worst part came as they made their way up to the narrow path that led around the cliff, but Meg found if she faced the cliff and did not look down, it was amply wide to sidle along, and after a time, the path broadened as it curved around the headland and started north.

They soon emerged at the top of the cliff. Meg pulled down her skirts and took the hand Damon held out to her. The sun was fully up now, and everything sparkled, clean and fresh. It was, Meg thought, a lovely day.

She gestured in front of them. “That was a fierce storm.
Look at how much land has been disturbed. Even up there, where the water does not reach.”

“The wind was vicious; it probably blew the sand off.”

“That used to be a hillock there.” She pointed. “Now all you can see are some stones.” She narrowed her eyes. “How odd. They look almost like a wall.”

“Perhaps it is.”

“Why would anyone put a little wall there?” She started toward the spot, intrigued. “Look! There’s more than one.”

They stood looking down at the low line of flat stones, peeking up above the sand. They ran in regular lines, forming three-fourths of a square, and beyond them stretched another line and still another set of walls in an L-shape.

“It looks almost . . .”

“Like a house that’s been torn down,” Damon finished. “Or a shed, I suppose. It’s rather small.”

“Small! It would make my cottage seem grand. But why would anyone build a house here? Or a shed, for that matter.” She frowned. “No one’s ever lived here that I’ve heard of. It’s been just a hillock all my life.”

“I think this is much older than that. Perhaps even older than your tales.” He squatted down beside one wall. “This reminds me of some things I’ve seen in England. I had a professor—” He looked up at her with a grin. “The one who would have flayed me for letting those standing stones be moved. He took some of us students to a place that had been excavated. Not Roman ruins, older than that.”

“Older than Roman?” She looked back at the exposed stones. “You think these are ancient ruins?”

“Could be.” He shrugged. “They had a similar look, so old the earth had grown up around them. There were bar
rows and standing stones not far from those ruins, just like here.” He stood up. “I’ll have to write Lionel; he’d be very interested in a holiday at Duncally, I imagine.”

They regarded the partially buried stones.

“It seems there are a number of secrets in this place,” Damon mused.

Meg pulled the gold coin from the depths of her skirt pocket and rubbed her thumb across it meditatively. “Far more than I’ve known of.” She turned to Damon. “Do you think Malcolm Rose was really Faye’s secret lover?”

“Well, we have French coins from that time in the place where she likely left messages and/or met with a man whose identity she was extremely careful to keep secret.” Damon began to tick the points off on his fingers. “We have a married man—whose wife sank a knife into his back, by the way, not an unlikely end for an unfaithful spouse—a married man of some stature and wealth who is rumored to have brought back treasure from France, a treasure no one has ever been able to find. Cryptic messages from your grandmother about holding something that belonged to her lover, an expensive hair comb given to her by said mystery lover, and the mate to it with the love letter she wrote him. And she referred to ‘our child.’ I think it would be far more unlikely if you were
not
Malcolm Rose’s granddaughter.”

Meg shook her head and took Damon’s hand again. “It is hard to imagine. I never dreamed it could be him because he was in France during that time.”

“But you told me this story before. Malcolm came back, and his jealous wife killed him because she discovered a letter he’d sent to another woman. It all fits. Your grandmother was that woman.”

“Yes, but his wife intercepted his note asking his lover to meet him. So Faye would never have gotten that letter. So he and Faye would not have met.”

“Obviously she did see him somewhere. Somehow. How else would she have the treasure he brought back with him? Being a man eager to be with the woman he loved and whom he had not seen for weeks—and I think I have some knowledge of that position—I suspect Malcolm went to Faye as soon as he arrived. He was reunited with her, gave her the money or told her he had left it in their secret place, and then he hied off to Baillannan, where he then decided he could not leave without seeing his love again. So he sent her a note, and it was that which his suspicious wife found. And she paid him back for his infidelity with a bit of cold steel.”

“A high price.” Meg gave a little shiver. She went up on tiptoe to kiss Damon’s cheek. “I am very glad that I do not have to hide your identity.” She held her hand out, turning it this way and that, admiring the glitter of the sun on its gems.

Damon took her hand and brought it to his lips. “It looks lovely on your hand. But this is only a frippery thing, just citrine and peridot, that I had already ordered to match your hair comb. It was all I had at hand to use as an engagement ring. We can replace it with a finer one in London, emeralds and a yellow diamond, say.”

“But, no, I love this one! It is . . .” She rubbed a finger over the stone. “It is from your heart.” She looked up at him, suddenly serious. “Are you sure, Damon? Really, really sure? I love you with all my heart, but I do not need to have your name for that.”

“I
do
need for you to have my name. My name, my
heart, everything I am or possess. I love you, Meg.” He took her mouth again in a long, tender kiss. When he pulled away, he grinned. “And how else am I to get you to accept a gift?”

Damon looped his arm around her shoulders. Meg laughed and leaned against him as they turned toward home.