Sizzle All Day (9 page)

"Didn't your mother teach you it's not polite to spy on a person?"

"I could ask you the same question, but that is not an answer I seek. Who are you? What is your real name, Mr. J. A. K. Delaney, and why have you come to Rowanclere?"

Jake debated his response. He wasn't about to tell her he was here for the Declaration, but his story of writing a book about castles obviously wouldn't hold water anymore. What would? To buy time, he said, "My name is Delaney. James Allen Kenneth Delaney, but you can call me Jake. And you are right. I am not an author."

Smug satisfaction filled her tone. "Then what are you?"

A dozen different possibilities floated through his mind. He chose the one most outlandish, the one that made him smile. "I'm actually Father Delaney, a Benedictine monk, and I've come on the trail of a rare manuscript stolen from a church outside of Rome during the second Crusade."

"You a priest? Hah." Scorn lashed like a whip. "And I am the Queen of England."

"I thought you were a ghost."

Fabric rustled, then he sensed a presence. He tried to peer through the blindfold, to no avail.

"Actually, I am the Scourge of Rowanclere and I'm running out of patience. Answer my question. Why were you searching our library?"

Her voice sounded different now and came from his right. Damned if she didn't sound like Mrs. Dunbar. But the scent was different. Not roses, but something else. Something more complicated, more exotic. More erotic. "What's that perfume you're wearing? It's different. Jasmine and spice."

"You are a lunatic."

"It's wonderful, though. You smell wonderful."

"It's called Coffin Cologne. Now tell me why you are here."

Coffin Cologne. He grinned. Wasn't she something?

Damn, he wanted to touch her. Maybe if he made her angry enough... "Fine. I'm a robber. I was looking to steal your jewels."

"My jewels?" Now she laughed, low and husky; and the sound sent a seductive shiver up his spine. "If that is the case, you are out of luck. Any jewels owned by this family were lost by Brodie ancestors long ago."

"So you are a Brodie, then?"

"A Ro—" She broke off and went silent for a long minute. "You tried to trick me."

"Yes ma'am, I did. Almost worked, too."

He heard her mutter something beneath her breath and the sound of her footsteps as she paced in a circle around him. Then suddenly, the air seemed to bristle. He felt her presence as she leaned near. Menace loomed in her voice as she spoke into his ear. "I have been told that in Texas you have spiders as big as a man's hand. Tarantulas, I believe they are called? Is that correct?"

"Yeah."

She moved away again, chuckled softly. "I am certain they are most frightening, but can they possibly be as wicked as my wee little friends here? Let me show you, Texas. You decide."

He caught a whiff of her heady scent and felt the heat from her body as she leaned over him once more.
Closer, honey. Stay awhile. It's drafty down here and I purely hate the cold.

Then he heard the twist of a jar lid.

He felt it first on the back of his left hand. Tiny brushes that seemed to barely touch his skin. They moved up his finger, then played across his knuckles.

Jake frowned. This didn't feel like little spiders or any type of bug, for that matter. In fact, it felt rather... intimate.

That wasn't too surprising. After all, he was alone with a woman in what amounted to the dark from his vantage point. While he didn't engage in bondage games as a rule, Jake wasn't unwilling. Especially when an intriguing woman was involved.

The featherlight strokes moved higher, toward where the rope bound his wrist. Jake concentrated on the sensation. Not spiders, but what?

Her voice blew across him like a soothing, sensuous summer breeze. "Dinna fash yersel' if you feel a bite or two. My pets are but a wee bit poisonous. They will only make you ill. They'll not kill you."

He clicked his tongue. "Now you're being vicious, honey."

"Answer my questions and I'll save you from my spiders."

Jake lay silent for a few moments, distracted by her perfume as he considered what to say next. How should he follow up his claim of being a robber? What sort of lie might work?

How anxious was he to end this "torture"?

The last was answered when her "spiders" breeched the vee of his shirt below his neck. All thought of declarations of any sort evaporated as a bolt of pure lust speared from his chest to his loins.

Jake strained against the ropes. He wanted free. He wanted to stay just where he was forever. Now he knew why he found this incident so stimulating. Feather Nell. The woman was an artist when it came to making a man sweat.

Back during the less discriminating days of his youth, he sometimes visited a sporting house up near Bastrop run by a woman named Nellie Blair. One of Nellie's favorite tools of the trade was a plain-old-every-day turkey feather. For the men of central Texas, she gave a whole new meaning to the notion of Thanksgiving.

But after a few minutes in the dungeon at Rowanclere, Jake concluded this woman could give Feather Nell a run for her money.

Clearing his throat, he said, "Torture me some more, honey. Unbutton my shirt."

The stroking stilled. "What?"

"You gotta give those spiders more room to move around to get the full effect."

Again, a pause before she asked in an incredulous tone, "You
want
the spiders to crawl across your chest?"

"Oh, I do. I really do." Damned if he didn't pant the words. "I've done this before, and that's a great place to start."

"By my faith. You are... the spiders... well, dampt!"

Her dismay told him a couple of things. First, the ghost might have been around the ol' graveyard a time or two, but probably no more than that. She picked up on sexual innuendo, but didn't take it anywhere. Second, the woman didn't care for spiders one little bit. For her, the illusion of being at the mercy of a passel of roving arachnids truly was a form of torture.

Wasn't she just the cutest little thing?

"I really want to see you," he told her.

"No."

"Will you show yourself to me if I promise to tell the truth?"

"You must tell me the truth no matter what. I shall not release you until you do."

A shade past innocent with a backbone. A combination damned near irresistible to a man. His lips quirked into a smile. "Honey, there is something you should know about me. Back home, I'm a lawyer by profession. In order to serve my clients to the best of my ability, I've learned to tell a darn fine lie. I could tell you the sun rises in the west and make you believe it. I'm that good. So, this little exercise you've arranged—though interesting, I'll admit—won't succeed without my cooperation. You might as well untie me now."

"Nae. That winna do."

Footsteps shuffled once again as she paced beside the bed. Jake could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.

Abruptly, she stopped. "So you admit to being a liar. Do you believe in God, sir?"

"Yes, I do."

"So if I make you swear on your eternal soul, I can place my faith in it?"

The woman was bright, too. Definitely a risk-taker. Definitely the most provocative ghost he'd ever run across.

"Yes, you can trust my word," he replied honestly. Of course, it was her responsibility to listen closely when he gave it. Jake could bend words with the best of them. He would tell her the truth, but he'd do it in the way he wanted it told. "What about you? Do you stand by your word?"

"Aye."

She said it immediately, without hesitation, and Jake believed her. "All right, then. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Her unladylike snort made him grin. Yeah, a shade past innocent. If he played his cards right, this trip to Scotland might qualify as the beginning of his much desired life of adventure.

"You answer my questions first," she said. "Then I'll release you."

"And you'll show yourself to me."

"I will. Now you must give swear on your soul that everything you tell me will be the truth."

"I swear." The scent of jasmine drifted past his nose and he savored it with a smile.

"Very well. First, I want to know—"

"Wait. You forgot to seal our bargain. A kiss should take care of it."

Instead of a kiss, she pinched his arm. Hard. "Consider the bargain sealed," she said. "Now tell me who you really are, what has brought you to Rowanclere, and why you were searching our library."

"You are not a very friendly ghost, lady," he protested. "In Texas our ghosts—"

"Your true name?"

"I really am Jake Delaney of San Antonio, Texas." Then he sighed and gave her the truth that had little to do with the questions she wanted answered. "I've come to Rowanclere because I'm a man on the run."

"From the law?"

"In a manner of speaking. My mother is the daughter of the Earl of Thornbury. The woman is attempting to use her father's influence to meddle where she shouldn't be meddling. This trip was the best way I could find to escape the... consequences... of her influence."

"What consequences?"

Even though Jake intended to use this line of conversation as a distraction, he still found he had to work himself up to say the word. It sounded as sour as it tasted. "Marriage."

Damned if she didn't laugh. Grumbling, he asked, "Would you untie my right hand, please? My fingers are going to sleep."

She ignored that, instead asking, "You are betrothed?"

"No, and I'm not gonna be. It's actually all my sister's fault because she got married last winter and that turned my mother's attention to me. Mother and Thornbury have only recently reconciled after being estranged for years. Therefore, anything she wants, he moves heaven and earth to make happen."

"She wants you married."

"And I'm happy as an armadillo digging grubworms being a bachelor."

"An armadillo digging grubworms?" she repeated dryly. "Lovely. But what does any of this have to do with Rowanclere? With our library?"

So much for distractions. Now came the time to talk the tightrope between truth and fiction without giving away the game entirely. "That has to do with an Englishman. A baron. Tell me, are you familiar with a fellow by the name of Bennet? Lord Bennet of Derbyshire?"

All sound ceased and the dungeon seemed to grow even colder. In a thin, thready voice, she asked, "Who?"

"Lord Bennet. He has an estate called Harpur Priory."

"Did he send you here?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

Without warning, she moved. He felt a fast tug at his left wrist, then his left ankle and the ropes fell away.

She spoke in a voice as flat and chilly as the grave. "Leave Rowanclere today, Delaney. Never return."

What the hell?
Shocked by her response, he was slow to tug off the blindfold. Twisting his head around, he searched for her in the shadows and spied a movement right before the light died, accompanied by the hiss of fire in water. She had doused the torch.

For the first time since the haunting farce began, Jake felt just a shiver of unease. "Wait a minute. What about our bargain?"

The burr of Scotland thickened a distant voice trembling with anger. "Take a lesson home with ye from Scotland, Texas. Bargains are like guid shortbread. Baith crumble easily."

Then she was gone.

"Damn," Jake said into the silence that lingered behind her. He blew out a long, slow whistle, then picked at the knots in the line binding his right wrist and ankle, pondering what had just taken place. What can of worms had he opened here? What had that bastard Bennet done to the people of Rowanclere Castle?

Judging by the woman's reaction, it had to have been bad.

Free now, he felt his way along the cold stone wall toward a door and the corridor beyond, where in the distance, a burning torch cast a faint light.

One thing was certain. He wasn't leaving Rowanclere. "Shortbread, hell," he muttered.

Crumbled or not, that gal owed him a cookie. He wasn't leaving till his sweet tooth was satisfied.

* * *

"What do you mean you sent him away!" the old man roared, his fist pounding the bed beside him. "You sent him away before I had the chance to meet him? He's a Texan, lass. A Texan! Do you know how long it has been since I visited with one of my own?"

Lamplight flickered against the painted plaster walls of the small bedroom built high on the castle wall. Gillian gazed at her grand-uncle with love and replied, "Aye, quite some time."

"Then how could you do this to me? How could you...."

Hands clasped behind her back, she listened silently as her granduncle continued his scolding. It took all her discipline not to betray a silly grin, so pleased was she to witness the improvement in his spirit. It appeared that this latest attack of the rheums was done. Gillian prayed it stayed that way.

Then a breeze swirled around Gillian's ankles, reminding her of the drafty nature of this chamber. She shivered and wished for at least the thousandth time that her beloved Uncle Angus were not such a stubborn man.

The Crow's Nest bedroom was Angus Brodie's way of keeping the vow he'd made upon leaving Rowanclere shortly after his father's death fifty years ago. During the falling out with his elder brother who had inherited tide, castle, and control over Angus's trust fund, Angus swore never to sleep another night beneath Rowanclere's roof He held to his promise even when John Brodie died childless and the castle came to him. One thing about Uncle Angus, he always kept his word, despite the potentially harmful consequences.

When he paused for a breath, she seized her chance. "Uncle, I am sorry you did not have the opportunity to discuss Texas with that man, but if you will allow me to explain, you will see why I thought I had no other choice."

"No choice?" Angus frowned. Narrowing his eyes, he gave the collar of his nightshirt a sharp tug, then folded his arms and studied her. "Explain."

Gillian returned his look, noting the way the furrows on his brow had deepened with concern. She wanted to reach out and smooth them away with a gentle touch.