Shivers Box Set: Darkening Around Me\Legacy of Darkness\The Devil's Eye\Black Rose (16 page)

I was too tired, shaken and sore to fully process the conversation. Uther noticed me then as I rounded the curve of the stairs. He glanced at me before quickly gesturing Desmond into silence. Tynan’s glum-faced servant bowed his head at me before departing. Uther offered me his arm and escorted me to the drawing room, where Demelza and the teacups awaited us.

A few minutes later, Tynan erupted into the room. His eyes searched the company and, seeing me, he started impulsively toward me. Uther made a movement to check his approach, but Tynan brushed his restraining hand aside furiously.
“Hweg!”
He threw himself down next to me on the sofa, possessing himself of both my hands. “What is this dreadful story Desmond has been telling me?”

While I repeated the story for the third time, Uther studied Tynan’s face. I knew not what expression he sought, but there was only sympathy on Tynan’s fine features.

“But I would not have had this happen to you for all the world!” Tynan exclaimed when I reached the end of my discourse. He raised first one of my hands then the other to his lips.

“Where have you been today?” It was the voice of an inquisitor, and Tynan’s brow darkened as he turned his head to look at Uther.

“I was not aware,” he said with a cold pride that I had not seen in him before, “that I must account to you for my movements, uncle.” Relenting slightly, he added, eyes twinkling, “I took the forest path and paused to rest a while. I must confess, I suppose, that I slept for several hours.”

“Did you take a gun?” My eyelids fluttered closed as I grasped Uther’s meaning.

“Good God, no! Why should I? I am no hunter, as you well know.”

The air was thick with tension. “Indeed, I do know it. And you are an abominable shot, yet there is a rifle and several rounds of ammunition missing from the munitions cupboard,” Uther stated. Demelza, I noticed, appeared unruffled. It was clearly their observed routine that Uther should do all the talking.

Tynan shrugged. “
You
hold the key to that cupboard.” His hand shook slightly as he brushed his hair back from his brow.

“I
did
hold the key.” Uther raised up a heavy ring of keys. “But it has been removed from my fob.”

Tynan sprang up at that, his slender frame coiled like a spring. “I see what you are about! You are trying to blame me for what happened to Lucy. If you imagine for a minute that I would
ever
do anything to hurt her, or anyone…” With a stifled mutter of rage, he turned on his heel and swung out of the room.

“Would you care for more tea, Lucy?” Demelza asked quietly, and I regarded her benign expression in amazement.

* * *

It was as if nothing had happened between us. Uther was cool and aloof toward me, and I began to wonder if I had imagined our intimacy. Or perhaps he was regretting his actions? I was, after all, a young female relative—however distant—and dependent on him, the head of the household, for protection. His conduct toward me had not exactly been protective…or gentlemanly! I hoped it was reasons of propriety, and not the alternative—that he had no wish to repeat the experience—that prompted this new circumspection.

My answer came a few days after our visit to Port Isaac.

“Take your clothes off.” Uther marched into my bedchamber, slamming the door closed and turning the key in the lock. I looked up from my book in surprise. It was early evening, and he had clearly just returned from riding. Mud splattered his boots and breeches and his dark hair was in disarray. “Now,” he said coldly, his eyes narrowing with impatience.

A discordant and highly inappropriate thought flitted through my mind. My stern governess had not bethought herself to inform me of the etiquette of an occasion such as this. How should a young lady respond when an unmarried gentleman bursts into her room and orders her to undress? This was a part of my education that had been sadly neglected. A secret smile touched my lips. I would have to improvise. I rose from my chair and began to undo the buttons at the back of my dress. Although I struggled a little, Uther did not come to my aid. He strode about the room, a slight frown marring his brow. I indicated my tightly laced corsets helplessly, and he clicked his tongue in exasperation. I held onto the bedpost, glad of its support as he roughly jerked the laces free and threw the offending corset across the room. With a swift, unexpected action, he caught hold of the fine cotton of my bloomers in both hands and ripped the delicate material apart so that the ruined garment fell about my ankles. I stepped out of it.

“Sit here.” He indicated the small chaise that occupied a corner of the room. In thrall to that mesmerising power he had over me, I continued to do as he asked without question. He prowled the room, fetching a branch of candles and placing it close by so that I was bathed in golden, flickering light. He stepped back, studying the scene. By this time I was quivering with desire.

“Lean back,” he ordered, and I allowed my head to fall back so that my neck was exposed and my breasts tilted skyward. I already knew how much he liked my breasts. In the cottage, he had spent an inordinate amount of time admiring them from all angles, stroking, squeezing and tasting. He was fascinated at how their rose-pale tips darkened at a touch of his hand, a flick of his tongue or sometimes even a glance from those gold-flecked eyes. Pausing now, he leaned over me, placing his lips over my nipple and suckling it with infinite tenderness. I tangled my hands in his hair to hold him there, but he laughed and moved away again.

“Raise your legs.” He demonstrated what he meant by grasping one ankle and lifting my foot onto the velvet surface of the chaise. He repeated the action with the other leg and then spent long, thoughtful minutes studying me. I blushed to be so exposed to his gaze, but, at the same time, exulted at the look of pleasure in his eyes. Turning away, he brought the small hand mirror from the dressing table over to me.

“See how beautiful you are, Lucia?” He placed the mirror in my hand and angled it so that I could view my own vulva. “See how pretty and pink, like flower petals unfolding?” He used his fingers to hold my outer lips apart while I watched in fascination. “You are wet already. Can you see that, Lucia?” One long finger pressed into the slick depths and he withdrew it, holding it up to show me the moisture that glistened there. “There is nothing more beautiful. It tells me how much you want me
here
.” His fingers returned to delve and stroke some more. “And here.” As I watched my reflection, he circled the tiny pink bud that throbbed so insistently for his touch. I arched my back, closing my eyes in rapture. “Not yet,” he whispered. “Keep looking.” He knelt before me. “Watch as my tongue tastes this precious nectar….”

* * *

Lady Morwenna Vernon was travelling back to her home in Penzance after visiting her family in Bodmin. By making a slight detour, she was able to stay overnight at Tenebris and spend time with her dear friend, Demelza. The arrival of Morwenna’s carriage, just before noon, prompted a flurry of activity. The family dutifully assembled in the great hall to greet her. Her Ladyship was a voluptuous redhead, rather past the first blush of youth, but not less attractive for that.

She greeted Demelza with apparent delight, before turning warm, appreciative eyes to Uther. “It has been too long,” she purred, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder so that she could reach up to kiss his cheek. “Far too long.” Her eyelids fluttered down as her lips stroked his flesh, and her body cleaved sinuously to his. My blood chilled, and I tasted the bitter tang of jealousy.

“A pleasure as always, Morwenna,” he replied coolly. “You know my nephew, Tynan, of course?” Tynan bowed courteously and was subjected to a speculative scrutiny.

“You are just like your father!” The instant the words burst from her, it was clear she wished them unsaid. Wringing her hands in helpless mortification, she continued, “What I mean is, Ruan was always slighter than Uther, less rugged. You resemble him in
those
ways.” It was a valiant effort, but, aware that she was making things worse, she broke off and turned helpless eyes back to Uther.

Demelza stepped into the breach. “Yes, I often think that Tynan is the living spit of what Ruan was at his age,” she agreed calmly. “Now, Morwenna, do let me make you known to my cousin, Lucy. I cannot begin to tell you how delightful it is to have her here.”

Morwenna’s eyes narrowed as she studied me, then flicked toward Uther, clearly assessing his reaction to me. A slow smile of satisfaction gleamed in her eyes. “How very slight you are!” she exclaimed, removing her cloak as she spoke and complacently arranging the neckline of her dress so that our attention was drawn to her full breasts. “Your figure is that of a child still. But how delightful for Tynan to have company close to his own age,” she told me indulgently, and my hands curled momentarily into fists. Dismissing my capacity as a rival, and relegating Tynan and I to the infancy, with those few words, she turned away from us. “I declare I am famished! But I know my dear Demelza will have laid on a veritable feast to greet me. Do give me your arm, dearest friend. I cannot wait to catch up on all your news.” Rudely, she turned her back on the rest of us and propelled Uther toward the dining room. Demelza, with the slightest hint of a flounce to her step, followed them.

“Well, at least you are merely too thin!” Tynan whispered as we trailed disconsolately along in their wake. “I, on the other hand, bear a striking resemblance to a murderous lunatic. At least we only have to tolerate the sight of her fawning all over Uther for two nights. My stomach couldn’t stand much more.”

From the outset of Morwenna’s visit, she and Demelza circled each other like rival cats. For all their supposed friendship, it was clear they were bitterly jealous of each other. Over lunch, the air was a flurry of extravagant, barbed compliments.

“Demelza, I do
so
admire you for continuing to style your hair that way, in spite of changing fashions.”

“Why, thank you, Morwenna dearest. I, on the other hand, wish I could cultivate your devil-may-care approach when it comes to clothes. But I find myself quite unable to wear just
anything
, simply because it happens to be in the latest mode.”

“You are probably wise, my dear. At your age, one can never be too careful.”

Uther rolled expressive eyes at me while Tynan remained disinterested, his fallen angel’s face bored. After a while, Morwenna grew tired of baiting Demelza and turned smouldering eyes to Uther.

“Tell me how it comes about that a man with such elan as you has managed to remain unattached, my dear friend?” she murmured. “Can it be that you still hold a candle for your first love?” she asked archly, giving a throaty chuckle.

“If I could remember who she was, I might be able to answer that question,” Uther replied.

“Oh, come now!” Morwenna, stretching out a hand to stroke his forearm, appeared to have forgotten that they were not alone. “I distinctly remember one or two decidedly lover-like encounters between us when we were very young and even more once we became rather older.”

“You will have me blushing, Morwenna.” Uther remained unruffled.

“Although,” she continued, warming now to her theme, “if we are to be entirely accurate, your first
love
was Eleanor, was it not?”

An uncomfortable silence descended. Demelza threw Morwenna a warning glance that flickered across to Tynan, but Her Ladyship merely laughed again. “Oh come now, Demelza! Do not look those daggers at me. Why, Tynan here must know that his mother was all but promised to Uther first before she met Ruan, surely?” She cast a glance around the table. The wooden faces that greeted her told their own tale. “Ah,” she said, momentarily silenced, “but this is ancient history, my darlings. Do tell me, Uther dearest, can it be true that there is really no lady in your life today?”

Later that afternoon, I lay naked in Uther’s arms, my body jerking wildly as a violent orgasm tore through me. He, as always, was fully clothed and I had stopped asking why this love—if such it could be called—must be so one-sided. I knew he wanted me with the same fathomless desperation with which I craved him.

As if he read my mind, he took my hand and placed it against the straining hardness of his erection. Shyly, I reached for the buttons on his breeches, but he forestalled me. “No, I will not be answerable for the consequences if you release me,” he growled, shuddering as my inexperienced fingers continued to caress him through the restraining cloth. “I want you to feel it, feel the power you have over me.” His golden gaze burned into mine. “One day, you will feel it here.” He pushed his fingers hard inside me and my muscles, still racked by sensual spasms, tightened eagerly around him. “And when that day comes, you will know what it is to weep in ecstasy.”

“When?” I whispered hungrily. I wanted it to be now! Why must we wait?

“One day very soon, Lucia.” Whenever he called me Lucia, his passion for me intensified to a point just beyond rational thought. He devoured me again with those lips that I wanted to spend my whole life tasting. This action effectively silenced my question for the time being, but, having given myself to him so completely already, I was eager to finish it. There was, after all, only a minor technicality left. Having decided that I wanted to make love to him, there were no considerations of decency left to me. I wondered what the reason for Uther’s odd reluctance could be. I was sure it was not morality or prudishness! Just then, his lips moved down my throat towards my breast and, unaccountably, I lost my train of thought.

“Why does Demelza dislike Lady Morwenna?” I asked him later.

He shrugged. “They have always been the competing beauties of the neighbourhood. Old rivalries die hard, I suppose.”

“Lady Morwenna likes
you
very much,” I observed, pleating the eiderdown with nervous fingers. I was being presumptuous, and dared not meet his eyes.

“Jealous, Lucy?” His voice was amused. Gripping my chin, he forced me to look up. “Did you think I was a monk?” he asked. I shook my head sadly. It was an admission of what I already knew. He and Morwenna had been—perhaps still were—lovers.

“Morwenna is a passionate woman, married to an old man. It is not surprising that she should seek satisfaction elsewhere. And I am a man. It means nothing.”

“Will you go to her tonight?” I hung my head again so that he could not see the pleading desperation in my eyes.

“I may.” He rose and stretched, reminding me irresistibly of a large cat. “Would you like to come along and watch, little Lucy? Morwenna is very open-minded—I’m sure she would not object.” He laughed at the shudder of horror that rippled through me. Leaning over, he nipped my bare shoulder with sharp teeth. Numbly, I lifted my face up to him to be kissed. He studied me long and hard. “Don’t look at me that way!” he said harshly. “If you want me, Lucia, you will have to accept what I am…
who
I am.”

With a muffled groan of frustration he walked out, leaving me staring after him in confusion.

* * *

“Good Lord, Uther, what was that awful caterwauling I heard from your room last night?” Tynan asked with a feigned lack of guile as we all met over breakfast. “One might almost think you had the kitchen cat trapped by its tail in there.”

Lady Morwenna, unabashed, gave a throaty chuckle and Uther threw Tynan a look of intense dislike. I swallowed the hard, invidious lump in my throat and stared down at my plate. When I glanced up, Demelza’s expression drew my mind away from my own emotions. She appeared, for a brief, unguarded moment, totally bereft, like a mother who has just learned of the death of her child. The look was gone before anyone else noticed and, with no trace of any emotion, she invited Morwenna to join her on a trip to Wadebridge that morning. I declined the offer of a seat in their carriage and, instead, spent a peaceful hour curled up in a chair in the library. I was, however, drawn away from my book by the strains of the piano.

The music was knife-sweet and haunting and I followed it to its source. The music room had windows on two sides and overlooked the highest point of the cliff so that, on entering, it appeared the whole room was soaring, untethered, across the ocean.

Tynan was seated at the grand piano, his face rapt as his hands flew, with expert precision, across the keys. The familiar lock of hair flopped over his brow and his eyes were closed. His fingers told stories of satin sheets and writhing passion. I stood still in the doorway for long minutes, watching him and allowing the yearning beauty of his playing to consume me.

“You can come in, you know,” he said eventually, without pausing.

I bit my lip. “I did not think you had seen me,” I confessed, moving forward to stand at the piano.

“I didn’t,” he replied, opening those incredible golden eyes and smiling up at me. “I smelled you. You smell fresh and new, like wild flowers when the rain has washed them.”

I felt a blush stain my cheeks and, to cover my embarrassment, said, “I do not recognise the piece you are playing. It is beautiful. Who is the composer?”

He finished with a flourish and bowed slightly from the waist. “It is very rough,” he confessed. “I have been sadly neglectful of my muse of late.” He shifted along the piano stool, making room for me. “Do you play?”

I joined him and said, “Woefully badly. I was taught, but, when my father and I went to live in India, I was left very much to my own devices. I confess, with shame, that I was not disciplined enough to maintain any level of skill.”

“Play something for me.” He watched my profile. “Make it of light and happiness. I never have enough of either.”

I spread my fingers over the keys. Turning my head, I encountered a look of such intensity that it made me shiver. “My memory is not good….” I stated with a smile that was instantly reflected back at me.

“Indulge me anyway,” he said softly.

I began to play. It was an old, comforting lullaby that my father had sung to me when I was a child. The words came back to me and, hesitantly at first, I began to sing.

“Calm be thy sleep as the infant slumbers

Pure as the angel’s thoughts thy dreams

May every joy this bright world numbers

Shed o’er thee their mingled beams….”

“And is your sleep calm, Cousin Lucy?” Tynan asked me when I had finished.

“Why, yes,” I replied truthfully. “Generally it is.”

“I envy you then,” he said with a sorrowful note in his voice. Before I could question the words, he began to play again. It was a simple, light-hearted duet which I knew, and I joined in, stumbling over some of the notes. As he laughed at me, the haunted look left him briefly. I thought how young and carefree he seemed, and how much it suited him.

We finished with a flourishing crescendo, both of us giggling like schoolchildren. Our laughter faded abruptly as, clapping his hands together appreciatively, Uther strode into the room. His presence dominated the mood instantly. I had the oddest feeling that he was angry, but his smile could not have been more charming.

“Why, Lucy, my dear.” His eyes were like a warm caress on my upturned countenance. My imagination presented me unbidden with a picture of him in Lady Morwenna’s bed the previous night. I glanced quickly away in case he caught a glimpse of my thoughts. “You play delightfully.”

“You are very kind, sir, but also very untruthful.” I rose from the seat. I was unnerved by the sensation of him looming over me. It reminded me of other, more intimate moments. “I play very badly, as my cousin here will testify.”

Tynan, however, had turned moodily away. He shuffled pages of scribbled music and made as if to leave. My heart was unexpectedly wrung with pity. “Why, Cousin Tynan, are you deserting me so soon?” I asked in a rallying tone, which won a reluctant, answering smile. “I had hoped my playing would not give you
quite
such a disgust of me. That we might even, perhaps, play together some more?” I rejoined him on the piano stool.

After a minute of watching us through narrowed eyes as we selected our next piece, Uther turned sharply on his heel and left us.

* * *

I left Tynan at the piano, adding the finishing touches to his composition. My heart felt lighter. I rounded a corner of the corridor and stopped short in surprise to find Uther propped up against my bedroom door with his broad shoulders.

“So you have managed to tear yourself away from him at last?” Fury blazed in the molten depths of his eyes as he jerked me roughly toward him. “You prefer
his
company—that of a callow boy—to mine?” His voice grated roughly in my ear. “You would rather
he
was here doing this to you….” His lips plundered mine. Desire, fanned into a furnace by his anger, flared between us instantly. His tongue was smooth and hard in my mouth, probing deeply as his hands slid to cup my breasts. My nipples reacted immediately, stiffening against the cloth of my gown. Frenziedly, he tore the tiny buttons of my bodice undone, freeing my breasts from the restraining cloth and pressing burning lips to them.

We gave no thought to the public place we had chosen; there was no attempt at gentleness or patience. Uther hoisted my skirts up to my waist, pressing his muscular thigh up between my legs. As he did, the voices of Demelza and Morwenna, newly returned from their shopping expedition, rang out in the hall below.

“Oh, no.” Uther forestalled me as I tried to pull away. “You have not answered my question.” As if we had all the time in the world, he slid his hand inside my bloomers and cupped the warmth between my legs. “You are so wet. Are you thinking of him?” I writhed in equal measures of fear and ecstasy, moaning his name. “Well?”

“No, Uther, please,” I pressed eagerly against his passive hand, silently pleading.

“Say it.” His hand remained still. The chatter and laughter below us increased as Demelza issued directions to Pascoe.

“I don’t want him, Uther.” I was almost sobbing now. “I want you, only you.”

“Good girl.” He moved his fingers. Deep, fast and hard, he rubbed the exquisitely sensitive nub that throbbed for his touch. “Tell me how it feels.” His voice was detached.

“Uther, please. It feels so…so good….” I was almost sobbing, but whether it was with pleasure or panic I could not have said. The voices grew closer as they began to mount the staircase. “But they are coming.”

He leaned in close and nuzzled my neck, laughter in his voice. “But what about you, little Lucy? Are you coming yet?” He showed no mercy, driving me ever onward, relentlessly flicking and stroking the taut, slippery little pearl. “Hurry up, Lucia, or this could become embarrassing.”

I exploded in a sudden rush of violent, gasping pleasure. Pressing a swift kiss onto my lips, Uther tugged my skirts back into place and, with a flash of his wicked smile, turned to greet his sister and her guest just as they rounded the turn in the staircase. Still shuddering with erotic tremors, I entered my bedchamber an instant before I would be seen by the new arrivals.

Throwing myself down on the bed, I buried my burning face in the cool cotton of the pillows. My mind was torn in two by conflicting emotions. Half of me wanted to linger in erotic recollection, while the other—saner—part of me cringed in shame. As much as I liked what Uther did to my body—and, oh! how much I liked it—I could not keep hiding from the truth. I did not like
him
, the man who could do what he had just done to me while another of his lovers was mere feet away. And, perhaps more importantly, I did not like the person I became when I was with him.

* * *

Dinner the next evening was a subdued affair, but I think we were all, perhaps for different reasons, secretly relieved that our guest had departed. When we repaired to the drawing room, conversation was stilted and I stifled a few yawns as we sipped our tea. Tynan had no such compunction. Stretching his legs out in front of him, he stuffed his hands into his pockets, lowered his chin to his chest and closed his eyes. Uther was engrossed in the newspapers and Demelza, eyeing me with sympathy, suggested that Tynan might like to teach me to play backgammon. The gentleman concerned opened one eye, sighed and said, with a noticeable lack of civility, “If you wish, cousin.”

“I would not dream of disturbing you,” I said with mock huffiness. This had the effect of rousing him from his lethargy and, together, we knelt before the large sideboard and rummaged in its depths for the backgammon board.

Tynan set up the board, explaining the game as he did so. It soon became apparent that he lacked both the patience and the inclination to be a good teacher. Before long, the proceedings had deteriorated into an undignified squabble.

“Really,
hweg
,” Tynan informed me loftily. “If you are not prepared to listen when I try to explain the rules to you—”

“Explain?” I demanded, my words buzzing with annoyance. Uther glanced up from his newspaper and threw Demelza a questioning look. She gave a tiny shake of her head and their exchange only fired my frustration. If they wanted to swap cryptic looks that excluded me, let them! I stood up abruptly and Tynan rose, too. We faced each other across the board. “You have made no attempt to explain anything to me, Cousin Tynan. All you have done is lecture me in the most autocratic, unreasonable manner imaginable, and then shout at me when I get it wrong!”

After staring at me for a blazing instant, Tynan suddenly burst out laughing, snatching me into his arms and whirling me about the room in an impromptu dance. At first I strained every muscle to break free, but then, suddenly, I started to laugh with him at the ridiculous figure we must cut. Uther watched us with an unfathomable expression on his perfectly carved features, while Demelza called out a light-hearted warning not to knock over the tea table.

“Oh I
do
like you, Cousin Lucy!” Tynan exclaimed, releasing me and flopping back down into his chair. “So very much.”