The Earl's Enticement (Castle Bride Series) (10 page)

He threw the washcloth aside and bolted to the door. Grabbing the bars, he shook them. “Unlock this door.”

Adaira shook her head. “No. Just give me the matches.”

She thrust her hand out, palm upward.

He had the temerity to reach through the bars and gently grasp her outstretched hand in his much larger one. A jolt of sensation lanced from her fingers to her breast. Her heart and lungs did all manner of irregular things. His chest was but a foot from her nose. The scent of his spicy maleness drifted between the bars.

“Adaira, please. You have to trust me. Yvette’s life may depend on it.”

Trust him? One didn’t become a spy without being a master of deception. Why, next he’d be trying to convince her that a monster lived in the depths of the loch or fairy cats roamed the woodlands behind the keep.

No, she’d never trust him.

Adaira yanked her hand free and rubbed it against her thigh as if burned. “Just give me the bloody matches!” Panic churned her innards. “If you’ve a shred of decency in you. . .”

Her voice caught on a sob. “Please . . . I’m begging you. Please, give me the matches.”

“And what, pray tell, are you going to do alone?” Marquardt struck the wall with one hand. His bicep bulged. “Dammit, I told you, I’m not Edgar! You’re wasting precious minutes arguing with me.”

Adaira stared into his piercing eyes. She could find no trace of subterfuge. She wanted to believe him, wanted to trust him. All that mattered was helping Yvette.

He raked a hand through his mahogany hair, leaving the damp strands sticking up at awkward angles. The scar on his forehead stood out, a white beacon of ire.

“With every passing minute, the danger to Yvette increases.” Whipping around, he rushed to the corner of the cell. He snatched his shirt from the arm of the chair. Puckered pinkish-red scars crisscrossing his back resembled a ragged quilt of human flesh. He yanked the soiled garment over his head.

His back to her, he lowered his voice. “This delay could cost my sister her life.”

She swore he swallowed against emotion clogging his throat.

Yvette’s gentle voice echoed in Adaira’s mind.

“As a boy, the poor man was whipped by the old earl. He bears the scars to this day.”

Choking on a horrified gasp, Adaira’s gaze riveted on his back. She clutched the door to steady herself against a sudden rush of faintness.

“Oh sweet Jesus in heaven.”

Marquardt looked over his shoulder, a quizzical expression on his face.

She raised her gaze to his. She pointed a shaking finger at him. “You’re the earl.”

CHAPTER 11

Adaira fumbled with the keys. Her hands shook as she tried to slide the key into the rusty lock.

“Bloody hell. Let me do it.” The earl snatched the ring from her. Angling his arm, he tucked the skeleton key into the lock. With a quick twist of his wrist, the latch clicked loose.

She shoved past him. Stepping over the dead rats, she ran to his supplies. Tossing items aside, she fought back tears as she searched for the matches. “We’d best get help. I think Aubry was taking Yvette to one of the outer doors.”

She speedily lit the lantern, then blew out the match. “Ewan will. . .”

His lordship’s hands closed over her shoulders. She gasped when he spun her around to face him, his features hard. “I don’t have the leisure at the moment to give you the spanking you deserve.”

He snared her hand in his, towing her to the door. “But, rest assured, things aren’t finished between us. There will be consequences for locking me in here.”

Roark unceremoniously hauled Adaira into the great hall. Sethwick, several Scotsmen, as well as a handful of ladies and a small red-haired urchin stood huddled together. From the distressed looks on everyone’s faces, he guessed they knew Yvette had gone missing.

At his and Adaira’s appearance, a hush cocooned the room.

Surprise, followed by confusion, then anger flashed across several faces including Sethwick’s. A flush of humiliation surged over Roark. He’d never appeared in public, or private for that matter, this unkempt.

Several days’ growth of beard on his face, in his shirtsleeves and with filthy stockinged feet, he stood before them wholly disheveled. His clothes were so soiled that despite his hurried bath, he could barely abide his own scent. He knew his appearance bordered on scurrilous.

Adaira gave a tentative tug on the arm he had wrapped in his grasp. She slanted him a hesitant glance. Face flushed, her eyes, the pupils dilated and black as coal, were wide and anxious. Her sable hair, an unruly mass, hung to her waist. Her rumpled shirt was untucked, the top gaping open.

His chest tightened. Good God, she looked like she’d been thoroughly compromised. He shot a quick glance at the others. Their gazes reflected a concert of negative emotions. There would be hell to pay if they jumped to that ridiculous conclusion.

Adaira’s pink tongue darted out and traced her lips. A painful surge of blood rushed to his groin.

Ye gods.

Had she done that on purpose, to disarm him in from of her family? Her kind knew how to use their tears and wiles. Delia had perfected the art of manipulation. The thought of his late wife cooled his ardor and inflamed his ire.

Adaira swallowed several times. Was she nervous? Good. She should be.

Roark’s gaze perused those assembled.

An attractive middle-aged, dark-haired woman bounded to her feet. She rushed across the room to grip an enormous, fierce-looking Scotsman’s arm. The parents, Lady Ferguson and Sir Hugh, no doubt.

Lady Ferguson’s expression held a blend of alarm and uncertainty. Her eyes met Roark’s, then sank to his hand encircling Adaira’s arm. Lady Ferguson scrutinized her daughter. Her eyes widened at the rumpled shirt, then flew to meet Adaira’s gaze. “Addy?”

The one word asked several questions, namely,
have you been ravished by this rake
?

“What be the meaning of this? Unhand me daughter,” the Scot bellowed, taking a threatening step forward. His wife’s hand on his arm halted his progress.

“Clarendon?” Sethwick’s eyebrows rose in surprise before crashing together in a harsh glower. “Where the hell did you come from?”

Roark gave Adaira a slight jostle. She didn’t protest, only stared mutely at the floor. So, she was capable of holding her tongue.

Sethwick’s mouth thinned. The half-moon scar on his cheek stood out boldly against his clenched jaw. “Clarendon, you’d better have a bloody good explanation for your treatment of my sister.”

The father and an equally huge young man greatly resembling Ewan growled dual warnings.

Roark sliced a glance at Adaira. “Now you’re silent? You’ve been blathering inaccurate, irrational balderdash for days.”

He shook her lightly again.

“Days?” Lady Ferguson looked from Adaira to Roark and back to Adaira.

Lady Ferguson raised perplexed eyes to her husband.

“My apologies, Lady Ferguson, sir.” Roark made a leg, his clasp on Adaira never relaxing.

“I’d hoped our introduction would be under different circumstances. Your daughter,” he leveled Adaira with a blistering glare, “has kept me as a . . . forced guest in the dungeon.”

“What?” A chorus of voices rang out in shock.

Her voice unsteady, Adaira finally spoke. “I thought—”

She peeked at Roark.

Firming his lips, he stared back at her unrelentingly. He’d offer her no quarter. He was the victim, she the criminal.

She averted her eyes when her gaze collided with his stare. Shoulders slumping, she mumbled, “I thought he was the other one. The one who wants to hurt Yvette.”

Roark made no attempt to hide his fury. “Even though I insisted she’d had the wrong man, she kept me caged below.”

“Oh, Addy,” Lady Ferguson gasped. “Tell me you didn’t!”

Adaira nodded. A pair of tears made parallel journeys over her high cheekbones. “I met him in Craigcutty. He asked directions to the keep.”

She raised her eyes to his, her expression pleading and desperate. She pointed at him. “You were traveling alone, and you said you were
Mister
Marquardt.” Her gaze dropped to his hand. “You’re not wearing a signet ring.”

Her tone rang with accusation. She dared to blame him?

Roark resisted the urge to take her other arm and shake her until her teeth rattled. Or turn her over his knee. Or kiss her until she was breathless and admitted her wrongdoing, stubborn chit.

He met Sethwick’s gaze full on, silently challenging him to object. “I often leave off my title,” he raised his bare hand, “and signet ring when traveling alone. I find it eliminates a lot of, shall we say, undesirable attention? Surely
you
understand.”

Sethwick gave one crisp nod. “I do, but can we discuss this,” he made a sweeping gesture that included Roark and Adaira, “later? There’s a much more critical matter at hand.”

He turned his piercing gaze on his sister. “Go to your chamber and stay there.”

She huffed out a breath, tilting her chin defiantly. “But, Ewan, I don’t. . .”

“Cease!” The expression on Sir Hugh’s face was a mixture of anger and worry. “Have ye no idea the seriousness of what ye’ve done?”

He tossed a glance to his wife. Lady Ferguson continued to stare at her daughter in disbelief.

“Yer mother and I will speak with ye later. Go to your bedchamber and stay there. Ye are not to leave it.” Giving his wife a swift hug, he moved toward the exit.

“Yes, Father.” Ducking her head, Adaira made to escape as well. She tugged against Roark’s hand still holding her arm.

He wouldn’t release his grip. “Miss Ferguson?”

She raised her gaze to his, a question in her doe-like eyes.

“This isn’t over,” he murmured for her ears alone.

Her eyes darkened and rounded wide as the center of sunflowers. The green-gold shards glittered. In fear? The color drained from her face, the freckles smattered across her nose and cheeks vivid against her pale skin.

“But . . . but . . . you wouldn’t dare—” She darted a glance at the others and swallowed. Her voice a rasping wisp of a sound she added, “spank me.”

He smiled a wholly self-righteous smile. “Wouldn’t I?”

She shook her head.

He bent his neck a fraction, and his breath caressed her ear. “Who was your accomplice?”

“Miss Adaira,” Maisey huffed as she hurried into Adaira’s chamber carrying a tray. “I rushed here to tell ye the good news. Lady McTavish is safe, praise be! That’s why yer dinner be so late.”

Late? It was half past eleven. Adaira assumed her punishment included going to bed without eating.

Maisey set the tray on the table with a thump. The dishes rattled and clinked together. She grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about that. The laird and clansmen have returned. She’s with them.”

Hearing a commotion in the bailey hours ago, Adaira had looked out a window. Her eyes misted in relief. The torches held by several mounted clansmen revealed Yvette sitting before Ewan on his horse, wrapped safely in his arms.

Adaira closed the book in her lap. Worry kept her from reading a single page. “How is she?”

“She be very shaken but unharmed, except for a wicked knot on her head. The laird found her in the bogs. Praise the saints she didn’t fall in.”

“Did they capture Edgar Marquardt too?” One could count on the servant’s tattle to know what was happening in the keep. Adaira had seen a dark-haired man surrounded by burly Scots being escorted to the gatehouse. She dragged her thumbnail back and forth across the closed pages of the volume.

“Aye, Laird McTavish nabbed him.” Maisey said with satisfaction. “He’s being kept in one of the guest chambers on the third floor. Under guard, too.”

“As he should be. He’s a dangerous man.” Adaira set the book aside.

“Och, that he is. Me heart aches for the earl, it does. He found out tonight his brother poisoned their mother. Poor man.” Maisey turned back Adaira’s bed coverings. After smoothing the counterpane, she toddled to the wardrobe.

Adaira gaped at the maid. The earl hadn’t known?

It made sense. He’d been in England when his mother and stepfather died in America. After a two year absence to expand Gideon Stapleton’s shipping enterprises, Yvette and her parents were preparing to return to England. Lord Clarendon hadn’t seen Yvette since she returned.

Her arrival at Craiglocky had been secretive. After her parents’ sudden death and Edgar had tried to abduct her, she’d fled Boston in the middle of the night. She’d been so terrified of Edgar, no one but her cousins, Lord and Lady Warrick, had known she was coming.

Adaira wished she might see the younger Marquardt in person. Did his wickedness show in his appearance, or was he as handsome as the earl? Her stomach reacted to the notion with a most uncomfortable quivering. She’d felt that way once before, when Mother had insisted she drink whisky-laced hot possets after coming down with a beastly cold.

“Maisey, what of Aubry? Wasn’t she with Yvette?” What would Ewan do with
that
traitor? Adaira rather hoped Aubry would see the inside of Newgate.

Maisey shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Nae, she wasn’t. I don’t have the whole of it, but there be something about her delivering Lady McTavish to spies, and then the banshee fled the keep with Campbell, the blackguard.”

Her face flushed with agitation, she ducked her head. “I’m sorry, Miss Adaira. I be speaking out of turn.”

Adaira waved away the apology. “Not at all. The circumstances have been distressing for us all.” She wrapped a curl behind her ear. “You said spies. Didn’t they capture the others?”

Maisey paused. Bringing her hand to her chin, she rubbed it, scrunching her eyes in thought. “Nae. I heard Sorcha saying Laird McTavish found two dead, a man and a woman, in one of the cottages.”

She dropped her hand. “It’s queer too. Edgar Marquardt, shot them. He’s the one who saved her ladyship from the spies.”

Adaira tilted her head to the side and drew her brows together. That didn’t make any sense. “Are you sure?”

Drat, she needed to talk to Yvette or Ewan. There must be someone who could tell her the truth of the matter.

“It’s baffling, to be sure, but that’s what Sorcha said, Miss Adaira.”

And Sorcha usually had the right of it.

Maisey bustled around setting the meal on the table. “I fear it’s mutton tonight, and tough from sitting so long.”

She offered an apologetic smile.

Adaira eyed the silver plate topper. She barely tolerated mutton. Blasphemy for a Scot. She sighed. At least it wasn’t trout.

Maisey set the serviette and utensils beside the covered plate. “There are some lovely seasoned tatties. Baby carrots, cheese, and rolls too. Oh, and bread pudding.”

Adaira wandered to the table. She hadn’t much of an appetite. A knotted mass had replaced her belly. Yvette’s return and Marquardt’s capture dispensed a good portion of Adaira’s disquiet. However, his lordship’s question about her accomplice continued to relentlessly churn her innards.

She sank into a chair, then poured herself a cup of tea. Steamy tendrils drifted upward from the hot liquid. Adaira placed a hand on her stomach and released a sigh. A long soak before she retired might be just the thing to ease her taut nerves. “Maisey, will you have a bath prepared for me, please?”

“Aye, miss. I’ll see to it while ye eat. Ye want it brought up straightaway?”

“Yes, please. It’s very late already.” Adaira poured cream into the tea before adding two lumps of sugar. Lifting the silver spoon, she stirred the brew.

Maisey turned to go, then stopped abruptly, slapping a hand to her forehead. “Ach, I almost forgot. Jocky told Niall to tell me to tell ye that Vala be foaling tonight.”

She sucked in a deep breath and rattled on. “He says all the indications be present. Lifting her hand, she ticked them off, finger by finger. “She’s twitching her tail, pacing in her stall, and stamping her feet.”

“Tonight?” Adaira sat bolt upright, dropping the spoon against the fragile china with a loud clink.

Jumping from her chair, she rushed to her desk and quickly penned a note. Folding the paper, she extended it to the maid.

“Please deliver this to Father immediately.”