The Highland Dragon's Lady (6 page)

As far as Reggie knew, nobody had
really
been in the attics since Pater had bought Whitehill. A few servants had gone up to make a cursory inspection and set rattraps, but her parents hadn’t had generations of clutter to store, and they’d been content to leave the existing detritus shrouded and mysterious.

Now, outfitted with lamps and chattering brightly, the party split up and—except for Heselton, nursing his broken ankle, and Mr. Talbot-Jones, who stayed to keep him company—headed for various sets of stairs. In addition to the main house, Whitehill had an eastern wing with its own set of attics.

“It’s probably terribly cold,” said Mrs. Talbot-Jones, “and a bit dusty, though Mrs. Kelly does send girls in regularly, and of course we did have the rooms opened up when we decided to have guests. We just never use it very much, you see. Mr. Talbot-Jones doesn’t play at billiards himself, and we don’t have the large parties that some do.”

“Not with only the two of you out here, no,” said Miss Heselton, and she shook her head. “I confess, Edmund, you and your sister are a complete mystery to me. I can’t imagine what keeps you in London for so much of the year.”

This time, there was no question that she’d looked at Reggie when she spoke, or that the innocent wonderment in her voice was false.

“Not always London,” said Reggie. “Edmund goes to Scotland for shooting parties.” Behind Miss Heselton’s back, Edmund sent a brief glare Reggie’s way. She couldn’t blame him, but the conversation was quickly descending into every-man-for-himself territory. “Mater, why don’t you and Miss Heselton take the main attics? Edmund and Colin and I are fairly hardy souls.”

“Well—” said Mater, frowning slightly as she weighed chills and dust against her husband’s plans for Edmund, then the aforementioned plans against the likely volleys back and forth from Reggie and Miss Heselton.

“Wouldn’t want either of you ladies to catch a chill,” Edmund said heartily, with a smile that Reggie absolutely knew Miss Heselton was going to take the wrong way. “House is full of invalids as things stand, you know.”

“It’s so very sweet of you to be concerned,” said Miss Heselton. “But aren’t you worried about Miss Talbot-Jones’s health too? She
seems
very sturdy, I’m sure…”

Edmund, in the way of men in general and himself in particular, noticed none of what “sturdy” meant in this context. “Oh, Reggie’s a fine strapping girl,” he said, and as Reggie considered proving as much by kicking him in the shin, he went on, “but we’ll send her in your direction if she starts to have the vapors. Good hunting!”

“Yoiks and away,” said Mater, more than a touch sarcastic.

One reached the east wing proper, and thus the stairs to the attic, through a long stone hallway whose high ceilings and dim light made Reggie feel that she and her companions were sneaking into a giant’s castle. She wasn’t the only one. Colin took a slow look around as they walked, then whistled. “Medieval sort of place, this.”

“It
was
an abbey once,” said Edmund. “An actual one, with monks and…bees? Wine? Whatever monks use to occupy themselves. The main house is really the new bit.”

“One modern family naturally needs more room than a whole abbey full of monks,” said Colin.

Since he sounded amused rather than disapproving, Reggie didn’t bristle. “Monks were short fellows, I hear,” she said, “like everyone back then. Besides, would you care to live in a cell? And have one robe to your name?”

“I’d go a long way to avoid it,” said Colin, and Reggie wondered if he
had
. He was a younger son; would he have gone army or church? She couldn’t ask, so she just listened, and caught his eye and his lazy smile when he added, “Even without those rather troublesome vows.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” said Reggie, smiling back. Feeling rippled across her skin, like faint electricity, but she tried not to pay too much attention. Edmund was walking on her other side.

The stairs up began grandly enough, a sweep of polished stone to which successive owners had added a wooden banister and a thick blue rug. At each floor, though, the staircase became smaller and plainer, until at last they were climbing a set of narrow wooden steps that was barely more than a ladder.

“Pity we’re not doing this three years from now,” said Edmund, “when they’ve redone the whole place.”

Reggie shrugged. “They might keep the stairs. Pater’s traditional.”

“I’d think so,” said Colin from behind her. “
Regina
Elizabeth
?”

“And here I’d been hoping you hadn’t paid attention to that,” said Reggie.

“A vain hope, I fear. Though a very impressive name.”

“I think it’s only the threat of treason,” said Edmund, “that kept ’em from going the other way ’round. Reggie here was the first child. Spoiled, naturally.”

Walking single file as they were, it was a trivially easy matter for Reggie to lean forward and flick Edmund in the back of the neck with her thumb. “No such thing, Edmund St. John.”

“Ouch,” he said, though Reggie knew it was mostly for show.

Colin laughed. “I should have known. Though you’re not much like the oldest of my family.”

“Well, you’re not much like Edmund. You dress too well, for one thing.”

“I have better things to think about,” said Edmund.

At the same time, Colin said, “I’d been hoping you’d notice,” and Reggie felt his breath on the back of her neck with each word. She almost stumbled.

“What, um, what is your older brother like?” she asked, trying to compose herself at least enough to walk smoothly. “Or sister, I suppose.”

“One of each. Judith was wild when she was young, but she’s settled down now. Takes an interest in farming and such, though I can’t imagine why. Stephen’s a good man, but rather tiresomely responsible at times. And fairly respectable too.”

“You’re right. Nobody’d ever say that I was either,” said Reggie cheerfully. “Quite the opposite, usually.”

“Here now,” said Edmund, “don’t sell yourself short, Reggie. You haven’t lost the family fortunes gaming, spent them all on clothes, or given ’em all to some harebrained sect. Comparatively, I’d say you’re doing jolly well.”

“Mostly so you can say that
you’re
doing jolly well,” said Reggie, but she smiled. “Oh well. Neither of us is dead or bankrupt yet. And here we are.”

Edmund opened the attic door. Around him, Reggie could see a dimly lit world of huge trunks and shrouded furniture. A wooden rocking horse peered back at them from one button eye, the yarn of its mane tangled and mouse-eaten.

“Well,” said Colin, “I doubt that it’ll get
more
inviting. Shall we?”

“Gladly,” said Reggie in her best garden-party voice, and they stepped into the attic.

Dust was everywhere. It settled on their clothes; it clung to their hands when they opened boxes or removed cloths; and it had all three of them sneezing regularly before long. Dragons, Reggie was pleased to see for the sake of the house, did not breathe fire when they sneezed, or at least not when they walked as men.

“I’m amazed Mater hasn’t gone through these things by now,” Reggie said, opening one drawer after another of an old armoire. “There’s enough here to fit out a house or two, and I’m sure there are people in the village who could make use of a bit of furniture.”

“There are people in London who’d pay a fair amount for some of it, I’d wager. At least for the smaller pieces and the books,” said Edmund.

“Books?”

“Mm-hmm. Over here.” Edmund was kneeling by an old trunk, one of a group of five. He held up a largish volume bound in red leather. “Homer. It’s not pristine, but the mice haven’t gotten to it, and the date on the flyleaf says seventeen eighty.”

“Is there a name inside?” Colin asked, turning from a chest full of old clothes.

“Not in this one. Maybe in some of the others. I’ll bring the trunk down and we can have a look once we’ve finished up here. What exactly
are
we looking for, by the way?”

“A body in a trunk would be ideal,” said Reggie. “Or bloodstains.”

“Long knives with serpents carved into the hilt,” Colin volunteered. “Evil symbols scratched in the wall.”

Reggie laughed and then shrugged as she tried to come up with a serious answer. “Anything with a name on it that we don’t recognize, I suppose. Or pictures or maps. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Shocking,” said Edmund, rolling his eyes.

Stepping past him, Reggie toed him in the side with one booted foot. “A little less sarcasm there, if you please.”

“Watch out, Reggie—if I fall over, this whole place could come down.”

“Quite likely,” said Colin, looking up at the rafters. He raised a hand and tapped one of his long fingers against the wood. “Nobody breathe too hard, hmm?”

“I’ll do my best,” Reggie said and plucked the dust cloth off of a picture. She eyed it, blinked, then stepped back and studied it a little more. Without thinking, she crossed her arms over her chest, protecting herself.

She couldn’t have said exactly why. The portrait showed a young woman in a wide-panniered dress: green silk with a white lace kerchief, and a stomacher frothing with white ribbons. A small spaniel sat in her lap. The background was dark and featureless.

The woman didn’t look at all unusual. She was smiling and mildly pretty, with powdered brown hair and large blue eyes that balanced out her soft mouth and weak chin. From what little Reggie knew of the fashions a hundred years and more in the past, the dress was ordinary enough for formal wear, and the spaniel was rather cute. Yet a sharpness in the woman’s eyes, and the way her hand rested on the dog’s neck, suggested that she was less pleasant than she appeared and far less kind.

At the bottom of the portrait, a brass plate had tarnished so badly as to be illegible, at least in the attic’s dim light.

“Quite a lady you’ve found,” said Colin, coming up behind her. “I hope the painter escaped with his head.”

Reggie laughed and let her arms fall back to her sides. “Let’s be fair,” she said. “If I had to sit for a portrait, I’d have looked a dashed sight crosser by the end.”

“You haven’t heard the plans?” Edmund asked. “Next Christmas, they’re thinking.”

Just as Reggie groaned, a voice called up from below, and all three of them turned.

“Mr. Edmund?” It was one of the maids. “There’s a telegram for you. A Mr. Meadows?”

Edmund sighed and struck his palm with his head. “Harry,” he muttered. “I wonder who it is
this
time. Excuse me,” he said and headed toward the stairs.

“Harry?” Reggie asked.

“Chap with a taste for opera singers. Rather heartless ones too, if I’m thinking of the right gentleman—although his expectations are largely to blame,” said Colin.

“And Edmund’s his shoulder to cry on,” said Reggie, and shook her head. She couldn’t say anything more. She didn’t know how much Colin knew, and there was nothing to say in any case. She stepped away from the portrait and opened one of the other trunks. “At least he gets out of some dusty work.”

“Leaving the burden to the two of us,” said Colin.

“I’ll pay him back for it later,” Reggie said.

She tried to sound casual, but her senses had come to full attention when Colin had said “the two of us” in his silky, accented voice.

It was true. They were alone in the attic.

Reggie was nervous.

Colin could see it in the way she kept glancing toward him and then away, in the swift movement of her hands as she sorted through a box of old clothes. When she spoke, he could hear tension beneath the laughter in her voice.

“We ought to bring all of these rags downstairs,” she said. “Have a fancy dress party.” She held up a red velvet doublet, considerably moth-eaten. “Can you picture yourself in this?”

“Red was never my color,” he said. “And besides, I’d have to powder my hair and wear knee breeches. No thank you.”

“You’ve studied those fashions more than I ever did.”

“Experience, not study. I managed to avoid portraits.”

“My God,” said Reggie, going still and staring at him.

“Not last I was aware. Although if you feel like making an offering—”

Reggie laughed unsteadily, pushing loosened hair away from her face. “How old
are
you?”

“That’s hardly a polite sort of question, is it?” Colin asked, because joking felt familiar and safe. He wished he knew why she was nervous—whether she worried that he’d try to take some advantage now, whether she regretted kissing him two nights before, or whether she simply felt awkward about the whole situation.

Such wishing was new. Women weren’t usually much of a mystery to him—he’d learned to read those particular tea leaves when Regina Talbot-Jones’s great-grandmother was a girl—but this one was harder to interpret, and Colin wasn’t certain whether that was her doing or his.

As he watched her laugh, he discovered that he was more than a little on edge himself.

He’d never had anyone discover his real identity. He’d told a few people over the course of his life—he’d traveled far and wide, and mixed with a number of strange folk, and he wasn’t as twitchy about secrecy and reputation as Stephen was—but it had always been his choice, and he’d always known them quite well.

Now Reggie knew.

And as lovely as she was, as much as his eyes kept drifting to her neck, her breasts, or the curve of her derriere, Colin couldn’t think of her as lightly as he did other attractive and potentially interested women. He kept rethinking what he was going to say, wondering what she’d truly meant when
she
spoke, stopping before he reached for her—in other words, overthinking as he hadn’t done since he’d been a spotty youth.

He knew what she could do, and she knew what he was, and he knew that
she
knew and she knew that
he
knew…and Colin was giving himself a damned headache.

“A hundred and thirtysomething,” he said.

“Hmm?” Reggie, who had turned back to the clothing, lifted her head again and blinked.

“You asked how old I was.”

“And you said it wasn’t polite,” she said, smiling.

“Many very enjoyable things aren’t.”

He caught Reggie’s eyes and grinned, and saw a slight flush rise over her cheeks. It probably wasn’t embarrassment. She met his eyes too squarely and smiled back too readily. Not for the first time that day or that hour, he felt arousal tighten his skin.

“You seem very…well-preserved,” said Reggie, and her eyes traveled down his chest for a teasing second before rising back up to his face. “For a man of your advanced years.”

“Not all that advanced, relatively speaking,” said Colin. “I expect to see four centuries and still be…vigorous.”

Reggie was facing him completely now, forgetting for a moment the trunk and its contents. Her lips pursed into a very tempting O as she heard his response, and she whistled. “Not bad innings, I’d say. Doesn’t that depend on you staying out of trouble, though?”

“Are you implying that I don’t?”

“I’d bet all of Whitehill on it. Though I’m not sure I’d find anyone to take that wager,” she added.

“Nobody who knows me, at any rate.”

“I was thinking more that nobody’d want to take the chance of winning this place now.”

“Not at all,” Colin said. “Ghosts add interest.”

“They’ve certainly gotten all sorts of exciting people to come out here,” said Reggie, and she grinned up at him again.

Over the course of his life, Colin had been alone with young ladies in a variety of places: featherbeds, haystacks, and even the occasional riverbank in pleasant weather. Dusty attics had never featured. Yet these places also had never featured Reggie, with her dancing eyes and her hair falling down around her shoulders.

“You’ve got a bit of cobweb,” he said, noticing the strands at her temple. He knelt down and reached out. “Hold still. And, er, brace yourself.”

She closed her eyes and waited, patient for once in their brief acquaintance. Colin brushed his fingers over her temple, lifting the spider’s web away. Beneath it, the edge of her face was warm and soft, and her hair was like heavy silk. He swallowed, brushed his hand off on his trousers, and noticed that Reggie hadn’t yet moved.

Mostly, at least. Her breasts were rising and falling rapidly, and he could see the quick pulse in the hollow of her neck.

Colin touched his fingers to that spot, lightly, and felt the speed of her heartbeat. Desire was coursing through his own veins, collecting warm and heavy in his groin, but he kept his voice quiet. He could be playful for the moment. He could be human, as she was.

If she let him, at least.

“‘Exciting people,’ is it?” he asked. “You certainly don’t seem calm.”

Without opening her eyes, Reggie shook her head slightly. “No,” she said, drawing the word out.

Colin traced a finger along her collarbone, just above the neckline of her dress. “Are you afraid of me, then?”

Her eyes snapped open at the question. “No,” said Reggie, very definitely. Then she gave him an impish smile, one that went straight to his swelling cock. “Should I be?”

“That depends verra much on who you ask,” he said and leaned forward to kiss her.

At first, Colin did no more than brush his lips against Reggie’s. His touch was light, but not tentative: the card that led the trick, the advance of the first pawn. He felt her mouth soft below his, her quick inhalation, and the way she leaned toward him. Then, hands on her shoulders, he pulled back just enough to look into her eyes.

“How about now?”

She shook her head, smiling and biting her lip. “I hope that doesn’t disappoint you.”

“I doubt there’s a man on earth who’d find you disappointing,” he said and leaned forward again.

This time, the kiss was deep and lingering. Colin took his time, savoring the building tension between them, nibbling at Reggie’s lips and stroking his hands down her sides. He only let his fingertips skim the sides of her breasts, and even that through the rigid casing of her corset, but she still gasped at the contact and wriggled closer to him.

By the time he broke off the kiss, they both lay on the floor facing each other, Reggie’s breasts just grazing Colin’s chest, and both of them breathing hard. Circling the rise of her hip with one hand, Colin used the other to brush her hair back again. He studied her face, her swollen lips and dazed eyes.

She let him look for about three seconds. Then she ducked her head and bit him lightly on the neck.

It wasn’t so much the bite itself that made him go cross-eyed with lust, although God knew the sensation of her warm lips and sharp teeth against his skin was maddening enough. It was the surprise of it, the daring playfulness, and also the way it brought Reggie’s whole form against his. His hips jerked, thrusting his erection pleasurably and frustratingly against her stomach, and without thinking, he tightened his hands in her hair and on her hip.

She made a strangled noise, too low to exactly be a whimper, against the hollow of his neck.

“Good?” he asked, mastering himself enough to speak. He knew already—she was trailing kisses down his throat now, and her fingers were digging into his back—but he wanted to hear her say it.

Wanted, in fact, to make her say it.

She hesitated a moment. Then she raised her head and flashed him a grin. “I like to think so. Although a good girl wouldn’t be doing this.” Momentarily, she went still, just long enough for Colin to wonder whether she’d call a halt to their play. Then she shifted the angle of her body, just enough to wrap one leg around his waist, her skirts falling around them in a tangle of muslin and silk. “Or this.”

The feeling as she pressed against him was amazing, was wonderful. It was not yet what his straining body was coming desperately to need, but Colin could wait. He would be glad to wait, would cheerfully give up everything he had for the waiting alone. He groaned and kissed Reggie again, this time cupping one of her breasts, or at least doing the best job he could, given the impediments of wardrobe.

“You’re very pretty like this,” he muttered as he nibbled at her earlobe, “but I’d prefer the shirt and trousers just now.”

“Me too,” said Reggie, breathless. Then, at another motion of Colin’s hand, she closed her eyes and bit her lip, silent for a second before managing, “Though I’m…I mean, this is still very…”

“Very?” Turnabout being fair play, he bit gently at her neck. She arched against him, which had the useful effects of pushing her breast further into his hand and of sliding her thighs against his cock. Colin stifled a groan. “Don’t leave me in suspense,” he said.

“There aren’t…mmm…there aren’t really
words
. ‘I like it’ is…” She swallowed as Colin cupped her calf and slid his hand upward. Taking off the corset was probably impractical, he’d decided regretfully, but other regions were at least a little less guarded. And the lady seemed to like that decision. “Inadequate. As a description.”

She wore silk stockings, he discovered, and silk drawers as well, and her legs were long and shapely, firm under his fingers. Colin was vaguely aware of a cracking sound nearby, but it didn’t come from the stairs, so it was probably mice or the house settling, and he ignored it in favor of stroking Reggie’s thigh and making her moan. “Fortunately,” he said, “there are less verbal demonstrations.”

“O-oh?”

He wasn’t sure whether she was urging him to elaborate or honestly uncertain what he meant. He didn’t know how far her experience had gone, either with others or alone. He didn’t ask, preferring to skim his fingers upward and over as she shook beneath his hand, to trace the seam of her drawers and find it as intoxicatingly wet as he’d hoped. “Yes,” he said, confirmation and arousal at the same time. She did whimper this time, and thrust her sex against his fingers. “Yes, sweetheart, like that.”

Another series of sharp cracks reached his ears, this time getting through his desire. What the hell
was
that?

As he heard the first rumble, he realized that the temperature had dropped.

Lust vanished. The need for action took over. With no time to get to his feet, Colin wrapped his arms around Reggie and rolled, shoving them past the trunks and farther into the attic. As his shoulder collided painfully with the edge of a cupboard, he heard another rumble from above.

Then the roof parted and a cloud of rubble poured in, just over the place where he and Reggie had been.