What Wild Moonlight

by Lynne, Victoria

  “In what way?”

  “Everything I did was an effort to please my father—I suppose I wanted to prove that I was worthy of carrying on his name. I was determined to mold myself into the proper little lord. It used to drive Richard mad.”

  “Because he was jealous of your relationship with your father?”

  “Because he thought I was a complete fool,” Nicholas corrected with a smile. He brought up one knee, resting his elbow on it. “Trying to please our father was as futile a pursuit as trying to drown a fish. It simply couldn’t be done. Richard was intelligent enough to recognize that from a young age. The more demands were put on him, the more he rebelled. In some ways I think our father respected that far more than he respected my eager attempts at approval.”

  “I see.”

  He shrugged. “In truth, in some ways I envied Richard his freedom, his total fearlessness. He may have respected my judgment, my sense of sacrifice and commitment. But we had each chosen a course and we refused to budge. I was the responsible, somber brother. He was the uninhibited, reckless one. It became a point of honor between us to prove how different we were.”

  Katya nodded. “What about your mother?” she asked. “What was she like?”

  He thought for a moment, lost in bittersweet reminiscence. “Gentle, kind, beautiful,” he finally replied. “Richard and I both adored her—that was probably the only thing we had in common. When she died, the thin thread that held us together as a family began to unravel. The older I grew, the more rigid I became—and the wilder Richard became. After a while the gulf that separated us was too large to bridge. But I never thought it would lead to—”

  He stopped abruptly and shook his head, refusing to give voice to the thought. Had Richard hated him enough to fatally plot against him? Was his brother capable of murder… or suicide? It was inconceivable, yet the possibilities loomed too large to be ignored. And if this was the case, to what extent was he, Nicholas, responsible for the gulf that had divided them?

  “Richard was as stubborn and prideful as I am,” Nicholas continued. “I know what it cost him to come to me for the funds to pay off his debt. I should have given him the money.”

  “You must have had your reasons for refusing him.”

  “I thought so at the time, but now I wonder.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everything that had been brewing between us for years finally came to a head that night in London. I accused him of being a reckless, profligate rake, a childish embarrassment to the family name. He accused me of being as cold and arrogant as our father had been, harsh and unyielding like an old man. I refused to see it at the time, but now I can’t help but feel that he may have been right. Perhaps I was using my power and money to force him to bend to my will. If so, he was right to tell me in no uncertain terms to go to hell.” He paused, then shook his head and let out a low sigh. “I doubt he meant to, but Richard did me a bigger favor than he could possibly have known.”

  “In what way?”

  “By forcing me to come here to Monaco to search for him,” he replied. “I have never enjoyed staying at my father’s villa. Too many memories, I suppose, most of them unpleasant. But on the occasion of this visit I’ve been even more uncomfortable here than usual. It has taken me a while, but I have finally realized why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it reminds me too much of my own home.”

  An expression of soft understanding showed in Katya’s eyes. “Is it too late to change that?”

  “I hope not.”

  Until his recent arrival in Monaco, Nicholas had thought his home in London a paradigm of the virtues of orderliness and routine. His servants moved about in hushed, measured steps, his meals were served with prompt efficiency, and his rooms held such a quiet stillness one could hear the clocks tick. At the time, he thought he was running a well-ordered household. Now, however, he saw an emptiness in his life that he had never noticed before, a rigidity that bordered on fanaticism. Time passing and life going nowhere. Richard had been right. He was becoming just like their father.

  What he needed, he realized with startling clarity, was a touch of mayhem. Profound disorder to shake the routine that filled his days. For a brief moment he imagined a home filled with noise and clutter. Children laughing and playing, toys scattered about, and pets scampering underfoot. Servants who smiled rather than whispered. Clocks that couldn’t possibly be heard, even when they chimed the hour. A wife lying next to him in bed at night.

  “You have such an odd look on your face,” Katya said. “What are you thinking about?”

  “You.”

  She gave a light laugh and tossed a pebble into the stream. “That explains the look—it must have been a frown I detected.”

  He sent her a small smile in reply, but he wasn’t at all focused on her light banter. Instead his thoughts were turned inward. Nicholas had never considered himself superstitious, yet now he felt haunted by a vague fear that was as senseless as the dark omens about black cats or walking beneath ladders. He couldn’t shake the suspicion that he and Katya had crossed some invisible line. That as long as she had feigned being his mistress, she was safe. But now that things had changed between them, he feared, she had been put in a position of jeopardy.

  Rationally he knew that his feelings were foolish. Surely their newfound intimacy and affection were visible to no one else. Surely she was in no more danger now than she had been on the first day of their little ruse. Yet he couldn’t help but worry, uncertain whether his intuition was a result of events occurring around them or whether it was caused by the heated emotions escalating between them.

  He studied Katya in silence as the golden sunlight streamed all around her. With her skirts tucked up to her knees and her feet splashing in the stream beneath her, she made a fetching picture of unparalleled beauty and innocence. In that instant he was overcome by a sense of purpose and resolve that had been missing since his arrival in Monaco.

  Until that moment, Nicholas had been wracked by conflicting emotions and uncertainty. Depending on the hour or the day, his feelings had run the gamut: pain and shock at Richard’s betrayal, guilt at how he, himself, may have contributed to the suicide, rage that someone may have killed Richard, and remorse at what had passed between them. These various emotions, powerful as they had been, were now eclipsed by a single feeling that was stronger than anything he had ever experienced. A dead certainty that he would kill anyone who tried to harm Katya. Anyone.

  Apparently feeling his gaze on her, she turned to him and asked, “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Hmmm.” She studied him for a moment, then arched one brow and said in a playful tone, “You’re acting very mysterious this afternoon, Lord Barrington. All these cryptic looks you’re giving me.”

  Before he could reply, she gave a sharp squeal and leaped up from her spot on the stream bank. She stomped her feet, then turned to him with an embarrassed laugh. “A fish,” she said. “It just wiggled over my foot.”

  He smiled and reached for her. “Have I told you yet today how beautiful you are?”

  Her expression sobered as she moved her hand self-consciously to her windblown hair. “I’m a mess.”

  He shook his head and made a soft tsking sound. “How remiss of me. I must have neglected my duty.” He pulled her closer and guided her down onto the lush grass beside him. Then he brushed his hand softly across her cheek. “You’re beautiful, Katya.”

  She searched his eyes as a hushed silence fell between them. After a long moment she said softly, “I never know quite what to do with you.”

  “Anything you want.”

  A mischievous smile curved her lips. “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  Her gaze locked in his, she raised one small, delicate hand and placed it against his chest He felt the heat of her palm through the light fabric of his shirt. She moved her hand slowly, watching his face as she traced a path lightly over hi
s chest, down the rippled muscles of his stomach, then back up along the broad lines of his shoulders. His muscles tensed beneath her hand and a slight shudder ran through his frame, as if she were giving life and breath to his body.

  He tilted back his head and closed his eyes, awed by the emotions she could stir in him with just one touch. It was as though Katya alone could awaken an innermost desire that had been lost within him. Finally he could hold back no longer. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tightly against him. He kissed her with a hunger he could not restrain. Her lips carried the crisp, tangy flavor of the wine; her tongue tasted as sweet as the berries they had eaten with lunch.

  Katya returned his fervor with a passion that shook him. Maintaining their kiss, she locked her arms around his neck and pulled herself onto his lap. Her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest. Her thighs crushed against his. As their embrace deepened, she wriggled her bottom on his lap, sending a fire through his loins. He felt his manhood leap to life beneath her, straining at his pants and thrusting against the softness of her skirts.

  Nicholas pulled his mouth from hers and let out a soft groan, burying his face in her neck. Bunches of soft, springy curls brushed against his cheek. Her hair smelled fresher than spring ram. Her skin felt softer than silk. As he traced a line of fiery kisses from her ear to her collarbone she let out a soft, kitten like whisper of a moan and let her head fall back. A tremor ran through her limbs and she clung to his shoulders.

  He drew his hand over the velvety flesh of her inner thigh as she ran her fingers down his back. Katya’s unconcealed responses to his lovemaking, her tremors and moans and soft purrs, made him want her even more, heating his desire until it nearly burned out of control. His prim little gypsy was a wealth of contradictions. She was both capture and surrender. She was the spark that lit his veins and the water that would extinguish his need.

  With one hand he clumsily worked free the buttons that held closed the front of her blouse. He tugged it off her shoulders, then pulled down the straps to her white cotton camisole until the garment sagged about her waist. His gaze moved to her breasts, he was awed by her fragile, womanly beauty. She was almost too beautiful, he thought, as his fingers lightly caressed her flesh. Like uncovering a perfectly shaped porcelain sculpture—but one that pulsated life and radiated warmth.

  Her breasts were soft and round and pretty. Her nipples were deep rose and tilted upward toward the sky, beckoning him to take them into his mouth. His fingers moved over her ribs, then along the fragile line of her collarbone.

  “Katya.”

  Her name was torn from his lips, a low murmur that was part groan, part wish, and part primal recognition, as though it had been like this between them for centuries. He cupped her breasts in his hands, amazed at how soft her skin felt against his calloused hands. He lowered his head and nuzzled his face between her breasts, drinking in the warm, womanly scent of her skin. Shifting slightly, he drew a nipple into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue into a firm, hard peak.

  He heard her sharp intake of breath as she writhed beneath him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. Suddenly she tensed and stiffened her spine.

  “Nicholas.”

  Something in her tone made him draw back. She looked beautiful, her lips soft and rosy, her hair cascading down her shoulders in wanton disarray.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “I thought I heard—”

  Her words were cut off by a shower of pebbles raining down the grassy bank opposite them. Nicholas jerked up his head in the direction of the sound. Silhouetted against the brilliant sunshine was the tall figure of a man—a man who had been watching their every move. Before Nicholas could utter a single oath, the stranger turned and raced toward his mount.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Katya quickly tugged her blouse and camisole back into place as Nicholas plunged across the shallow stream and scrambled up the steep slope. She tensed, listening for the sound of angry shouts or fisticuffs. Instead all she heard was the distinct rhythm of hoofbeats echoing furiously into the distance. The person who had been watching them was getting away.

  That fact was confirmed moments later as Nicholas climbed down the sheer bank and made his way across the stream.

  “Did you see who it was?” she asked.

  “No. The only view I had was of the back end of his horse, and even that was moving too quickly for me to get a good look.”

  “Oh.”

  She searched her mind for something intelligent to say, but her thoughts and emotions were too jumbled for her to construct a single coherent statement. The state of Nicholas’s attire didn’t help. He wore no shirt, revealing the vast expanse of his bronzed chest and stomach. His pants were soaked to the middle of his thighs, showing every muscle and sinew in his long legs. His dark hair was disheveled, doubtless from her having combed her fingers through it only minutes earlier. His ebony eyes—eyes that had been filled with heat and passion—were now guarded and alert.

  “Do you think it had something to do with the scroll?” she finally managed, forcing her thoughts back to the issue at hand.

  He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “Perhaps. Perhaps it was nothing but a bored farm boy looking for something more interesting to watch than a herd of sheep grazing in a pasture.”

  She nodded and attempted a sophisticated smile, amazed that he could be so indifferent. He might be so accustomed to midday dalliances that he could make light of what had passed between them, but she enjoyed no such irreverence. She searched for a suitable jest that would match his tone, but once again her mind came up blank. What was expected of a man and a woman who had just shared the kind of passion and intimacy they had shared? A light, teasing remark and the whole liaison was laughed off? Was it nothing but a way to pass an otherwise dull afternoon, or merely her own insecurities that made her read more into his tone than she should?

  Unable to resolve the question, she turned away and sat down on a low stump to pull on her stockings and boots. She stood and moved toward Daisy, giving Nicholas a murmur of thanks as he lifted her into his saddle. For the first time that day, his hands did not linger about her waist. Instead he moved with brisk efficiency, dropping his arms and turning away the moment she was seated on her mount. Then he swung into the saddle of his black and tapped his heel against the gelding’s flanks, sending the animal into a smooth, rolling gait. They moved side by side, making light conversation as they rode. But it was evident from his expression that he was as disturbed by the incident as she had been. An air of somber preoccupation hung over them both.

  Once they reached the villa, Nicholas adjourned to his study while Katya retired to her bedchamber to rest before her performance that evening. But the rest she sought eluded her completely. Finally succumbing to the impatient energy that seized her, she threw open her window and paced a bit before it, allowing the warm wind to gently brush her skin.

  Within a matter of minutes her attention had turned to the false-bottomed trunk at the foot of her bed. She removed the clothing she had stored within and released the hidden spring, opening the compartment that contained Sacha’s diary. She had become addicted to the journal, searching the words contained therein the way a sailor might search the sky looking for guidance among the stars. Katya carried the ancient documents to her bed and spread them around her as she sifted through the fragile stack. After two hours of translating badly smeared Latin and faded bits of ancient French, her head was pounding and her spirits were sinking. All she had uncovered for her trouble were a two letters written by a knight—a rather boorish and conceited knight, she thought—attempting to woo his lady love by cataloging his awesome battle skills and deeds of daring.

  She stacked the bundle of parchment papers back together in irritation, wishing someone before her had assumed the task of sorting and separating out the relevant pages. It would take her days more to get through the scrambled mass of papers
. As she lifted them, one withered piece of parchment escaped the bundle and drifted down to fall into her lap. She gave it a cursory glance as she moved to stuff it back inside.

  There is evil afoot.

  Immediately recognizing the writing as Sacha’s, Katya froze, her attention riveted on the page.

  There is evil afoot. I am frightened in my own home. Perhaps I should not admit this, even in these pages, but who other than me will read these foolish words? Where else can I turn to reveal my despair?

  Sometimes I think he must be mad. He professes to love me, yet his intensity frightens me so. How foolish I was, how wholly vain to let myself be flattered by his attentions Now it is too late. Last eve I felt his gaze upon me and turned to see him watching me. His eyes were cold, yet they burned with a deep, possessive fire. He doesn’t think I understand but I do. He no longer sees me. I have taken the form of his vengeance.

  I have spoken with Father but my fear only angers him. He will not listen. Even if I were to waver in my conviction to marry—which I certainly do not—it is too late to plot a new course. The king’s emissary and his men have already arrived.

  In a matter of days—nay, hours—I will become Marco DuValenti’s wife. I tremble to think what might happen once the ceremony has taken place. But I must trust in the fates that have brought us together. Perhaps Father is right. Perhaps I am only behaving like a nervous, foolish bride and there is nothing to fear. I pray that it is so.

  Katya set down the page as a wave of grim comprehension and defeat washed over her. So Sacha had learned to fear Marco. The realization was a bitter blow. She had been so certain that if she kept digging she would find some explanation for what had gone wrong between the ancient lovers. Instead she had found verification of the DuValentis’ quest for vengeance, the essence of the feud that had torn their families apart for centuries.