by Joanne Rock
“There is,” she insisted, her feminine voice a sweet pleasure to his ears. “Depend on it.”
“Fine. But until then, you need not fear me.” He managed a short bow. “I am the lord of Invergale. How came you to install yourself in my chamber?”
Her perfect pink mouth worked soundlessly as she seemed to grapple with an answer.
“It is a simple question.” He leaned an elbow on the ledge of a window, the view familiar to him in every season even though right now the lands below were dark. “You have sought out Invergale on purpose. You are young and not well chaperoned. You have made yourself comfortable in the master’s bed. Are you in need of a… er… extra coin for your services?”
“Excuse me?” She stepped down from the bed to stand on the floor, tugging a linen with her to clutch in front of her, as if she was not well covered enough.
She was younger than he’d realized, her face unlined, her expression uncertain now that he could see her more clearly in the light of a hearth fire.
“It is not unheard of for a maiden who has fallen on difficult times to offer her favors to the lord in exchange for his protection. You are obviously in trouble to seek shelter here.” Certainly, he liked this notion more than his earlier fear that she spied for his enemy. “Perhaps you merely tremble because you are inexperienced?”
She shook her head. “No!”
“Even better.” A new heat flared within him. “An experienced woman is all the more welcome-”
“I am not here to offer…” She pressed her lips together hard, her shoulders shaking as she seemed to wrestle with her words. Her cheeks flushed crimson. Finally, her mouth opened. “Myself.” She drew a deep breath. “I am the new mistress of Invergale.”
The heat that had been flowing pleasantly through his veins suddenly chilled. She could not have declared herself his enemy more clearly.
“If you will excuse me.” She straightened to her full height, which was barely past his shoulder. “I will dress and meet you in the hall if you would like to discuss this further. I hope we will not need to involve the local sheriff, but I can have my steward rouse him from his bed if you do not believe me.”
“Invergale is mine.” He hadn’t meant to roar the words like some territorial beast, but they surged from his throat with the ferocity of a dying man’s last wish. “No one has the authority to rule here save me.”
Frowning, she lifted her pitifully small blade a bit, as if to remind him she still wielded it.
“And look at how the place thrives under your careful stewardship.” She gestured to the roof of the tower where a hint of starlight was visible through a bit of crumbled stone. “Perhaps you have overseen the property for so long that you have come to think of it as yours, but I assure you that you have no legal claim.”
He straightened from the window ledge and advanced on her, good intentions be damned. “Do I look like any man’s chamberlain to you?”
He stopped a hand’s span from her, close enough to remind her she dealt with a trained warrior and not some weak-eyed clerk whose biggest responsibility was holding the keys to the storage rooms. Iain’s sheer size should have made his station in life clear.
“You look like a man far too accustomed to having his way, but I assure you, you are wrong in this.” The impudent female hugged the bed linens tighter to her chest, but she stood her ground with silent stubbornness despite her more obvious fear.
“Do you see the sword at my back?” he asked, waiting while her gaze flicked up to the jeweled hilt over his shoulder. “My ancestors wielded it at Flodden and Bannockburn.”
“It appears far better cared for than the tower falling down around our ears.”
The biting words were softly uttered, giving them a damning quality only a woman could manage. He shook his head, aware that his anger was fading, replaced by a simmering awareness he should not feel.
“Your boldness should not surprise me after the way you barged past locked doors to rest your head in my keep.”
The hearth fire sizzled and popped while the lady’s cheeks colored prettily. He could not help but enjoy the way offending her made her less fearful.
“It is my keep, sir. We can call upon the magistrate on the morrow to convince you, but you must leave at once.” She reached up with nervous fingers to tuck a silky brown hair behind one ear. The movement shifted the linens she held, stirring the scent of heather in the air.
Stirring the scent of the woman herself.
His nostrils flared, desire awakening with a sudden fierceness he had not counted on. He was seized with the need to lay a claim all his own. To follow the heated tension in the air to its natural conclusion. The woman was warm with sleep and her keen eyes saw him where others could not. That alone—that she could see him—called to him on a soul-deep level.
“You court a dangerous risk, baiting me on this,” he warned. His voice rasped on a gravelly note and he told himself to take a step back.
But his hands itched to reach out and touch her. Test the feel of her beneath the stiff fabric she wore. If she belonged to him, she would have been sleeping naked in his bed, not garbed in a gown that covered her from shoulder to toe. Her chest rose and fell faster, the movement visible above the bundled bed sheets. He felt every year of his abstinence like a century.
“Are you threatening to take back my lands?” The confusion in her voice surprised him, forcing him to shake off some of the haze of arousal.
She was frightened again. Despite her earlier bravado, she was just a simple maid and he had scared her.
Or, mayhap, his hunger for her had been what scared her. She seemed more unsettled now than when he’d roared out his claim to Invergale as its lord.
Taking a step back, he began to see the situation more clearly. Amazing how much better a man could think without a woman’s body close enough to touch.
“I have never given over my lands, so I don’t need to threaten you with taking them.” He sucked in a deep breath that wasn’t filled with her scent, hoping to clear his head. “The risk you take isn’t with the land. It’s with your body.”
She practically tripped on her own feet to scramble away from him. Her boldness vanished at those words.
By the saints, how could he have been so blind to the obvious? Sighing, he dropped down onto his bed.
“You’re no more than an untouched maiden, are you?”
* * *
Lily had feared this question from her dead husband’s lawyers or his relatives. She had worried her maids or even the laundress would accuse her of as much after her uneventful wedding night.
But a midnight invader—a strangely dressed and extremely attractive madman claiming to be lord of the keep—was the last person she had ever suspected would guess her secret. She half feared she was delusional to dream him up, this Highland warrior that her footman had not been able to see. What if she spoke to a mere ghost? Or worse—the shadows of her own mind?
“Why would you-” She swallowed hard, feeling ridiculous for asking him what gave away her secret. “That is—I am a widow, sir.”
Perhaps she should have just continued to demand that he leave. But he’d shown no inclination of moving. Now her awkward stumbling felt like more of an admission than any words she might have used. Her face flushed so hot she felt her heart pulse under her skin with every beat, each flaring vibration announcing her guilt in a bright blush.
The warrior settled deeper on the bed Glenda had made up for her, the sword at his back shifting a bit to one side to accommodate him. Seeing his big frame at rest, his massive arms bulging with muscles that no English lord possessed, did curious things to Lily’s insides. This whole night was preposterous, so it should not surprise her that — on top of everything else—she found the imposter exceedingly pleasing to look upon.
At times during their ridiculous confrontation, she had been certain she dreamed. Yet seeing him now, his plaid askew across an otherwise bare chest, his strong thighs, Lily could
not deny that he seemed very real. Could she truly be entertaining a man in her bedchamber?
A man who’d known, at a glance, her deepest secret?
She cursed her eyes for returning to his exposed legs again. She’d had no notion that a man’s thighs could affect a woman in such a way.
“Please sir,” she tried again, wishing now she had been more moderate in her conversation with him, just in case he was every bit as dangerous as he appeared. “I am sure there is a misunderstanding we can work out in the morning-”
He ignored her as surely as if he had not heard her.
“Most women are only too proud to declare their virginal status,” the stranger mused. “I have known well-experienced ladies who have tried to pass themselves off as untried maidens to woo a man.”
Were they back to this awkward subject? Her body flushed with embarrassment to recall his suggestion that she’d been in his bed to seduce him. She thanked heaven they had cleared up that misunderstanding, at least. What if he had climbed into bed with her on that wicked assumption?
“I am sure I’m not interested in the women you have known.” Keeping her sheet securely in front of her, she leaned against an unpacked wardrobe chest at the end of the bed, her thoughts straying back to what might have happened between them if he’d awoken her with the intent to enjoy her body?
Unbidden, wanton images seared themselves on her brain as she imagined the feel of his well-muscled form pressed against her. Her thoughts positively shocked her. She blamed the sight of so much exposed skin.
The man studied her, his chiseled features cast in shadow. With his dark hair tied in a neat queue and his green eyes tracking hers, she could almost pretend they sat in a London tearoom instead of a bedchamber in a deserted castle. Except no man would dare to speak to her of such things when she had been under her father’s protection. Or even her husband’s, despite the viscount being an invalid. She had never been so vulnerable.
And yet…the Highlander did not threaten her. Or beat her. The greatest risk he presented so far was the way he so captivated her attention. She could not take her eyes off him.
“Who are you?” he asked. “I regret not introducing myself before. I am Iain Darroch, Lord of Invergale.”
“Lillian Roth—that is, Lillian Desalles. I am the widowed Viscountess Broadville.” She allowed herself to trace his muscles with her gaze, although she attempted to be discreet.
“Your maiden name is Roth?”
“Rothmore, actually. And I am not accustomed to entertaining in my bedchamber.” She truly needed to get him out. By now, she was more concerned for her peace of mind than her physical safety. Clearly, he meant her no harm. But his presence stirred her with a restlessness she’d never known.
She put down her knife, hoping to call a truce. She was relieved to have it out of her hand.
“Lillian Rothmore.” He seemed to test out the name.
“My friends call me Lily.” A silly thing to share, of course. But her thoughts were a jumble as exhaustion seeped into her veins. The long journey had taken a toll even before she’d spent two days scouring the crumbling ruin of Invergale.
“Even though we have gotten off to an awkward beginning, I hope one day I have the pleasure of doing the same.” His voice was rather soothing, now that he was not bellowing out his claim to the keep.
“Invergale belongs to me,” she reminded herself as much as him. Her eyelids began to droop, fatigue weighing her limbs.
What if the man was only a dream conjured from a haze of sleep? Heaven knew, no one else had seen him but her. Maybe if she went back to sleep, she would dream him away from here.
“As you said, we can settle that matter tomorrow when you are better rested.” He seemed more agreeable now. Had he shifted closer to her end of the bed where she sat on the trunk?
His powerful masculine form had stirred thoughts of things no maiden would admit. But she was exhausted, her emotions a tangled mess. She could not help it that she imagined what it would be like to share a chamber with a man such as this. Especially when she might never know the pleasures of a marriage bed. Curse Iain Darroch. He’d put those thoughts in her head with his discussion of virginal maids and experienced women.
“Iain Darroch.” She tried out the sound of his name on her lips, the same way he’d done with hers.
“From the most powerful clan in the Highlands.”
“There are no more clans,” she reminded him, recalling her history lessons. “The clan system was outlawed over a hundred years ago.”
Sweet heaven, she wouldn’t even lose her virginity in her dreams at this rate. Why discuss history with an intriguing Highland warrior so close she could breathe in the scent of pine and musky male?
“Spoken like an Englishwoman,” Iain—she liked thinking of him as Iain—chided her.
“I am an American.”
The hearth fire dimmed and he still watched her intently from his seat upon the tick. Would her sheets hold the heat of him for long after he left? She couldn’t deny a high level of curiosity. She had never been so close to a man, her husband having never so much as entered her bedchamber.
Let alone her.
At the time, she’d been relieved. But if a man such as Iain Darroch had been her bridegroom on that night when she’d been dressed in no more than the frailest of lace chemises, her body washed and scented for a man’s pleasure, she suspected she would have been far more…amenable.
“American?” His Scots accent was pleasing to the ear, the lilting syllables a sweet music all its own.
“From New York,” she added, trying desperately to focus on their conversation and not the way Iain’s nearness made her feel.
“No wonder. You have the fire of a colonist in your blood.” He shifted to one side, creating room for her on the bed he’d commandeered.
“Thank you. I’m fine.” She feared sitting close to him in his state of dishabille would not help the fire in her blood in the slightest.
“Take your seat where it’s comfortable, lass. You are weary and I have disturbed your slumber.”
True enough. She’d been sound asleep before she’d awakened to find him at her bedside. He’d barged right in…right through a barred door, she realized as her gaze moved to the door. She’d lowered the bar herself before she’d lain down to rest.
“Iain.” She came fully alert.
His broad chest rose up and down slowly with deep, relaxed breaths.
“I like hearing my given name on your lips.” A wry grin lifted one corner of his full, sensual mouth. “Shall I call you Lily, then?”
“How did you get in this chamber?” she demanded. “The door was bolted from the inside.”
If she tested the barrier now, would it still hold fast? And if so, wouldn’t that mean he was not real? Was she truly going mad and this attractive, compelling man had been conjured by her lonely heart and agitated mind?
Panic made her breath come faster even as she neared the proof she sought.
“That does not always stop a determined visitor. The main doors of Invergale were barred to you when you arrived and you simply let yourself in another way.”
What other way? She peered around the room, seeing no possible entrance.
“You could never have scaled the walls to a tower room. Not without equipment and men.” She held up the light of logic to chase away foolish tricks of her mind.
He frowned, straightening to meet her gaze head-on.
“If you must know, I took advantage of a secret passageway.”
Her jaw fell open as she peered around the chamber.
“I don’t believe you.” A nervous trembling took root inside her.
The warmth of his body felt all too real. The sensible explanation for his presence caught her off guard.
“I’ll show you.” He rose to his feet, a veritable tower of a man. “Come.”
Her heartbeat jumped wildly as he edged past her and moved toward a far corner of the room. Tuggin
g aside a threadbare tapestry, he revealed a plank door on one wall. He would have to duck to enter. Yet, pulling up on an iron ring, he cracked the opening so she could see inside. The scent of stale, earthy air floated toward her as a shadowed tunnel was revealed.
He’d entered through a secret corridor.
“But you can’t be real,” she protested, unwilling to relinquish the explanation that fit this situation best. “My footman couldn’t see you when I did. Then, when I looked away for only a moment, you disappeared into the forest.”
Perhaps when she awoke tomorrow the hidden passageway would be gone and she could go back to thinking this had all been a dream. At this point, she would prefer to think she was going mad than that she had entertained wanton ideas about this virile stranger in her bedchamber. How far would she have let those brazen thoughts take her? Perhaps she really was losing her grip on her sanity.
“Aye.” He did not deny his vanishing act earlier. “Nevertheless, I am very real.”
He released the passageway door, allowing the tapestry to fall back over it. They stood staring at each other in the firelight, his green eyes locked on hers.
Sweet, merciful, heaven, she wore no more than her night clothes. In her haste to see the hidden passage, she had left her armful of linens on the bed, so she no longer had that added concealment. Her nightcap had long since abandoned its task and her unbound hair fell around her shoulders, a sight for no man save a husband.
“This cannot be.” She did not trust her instincts anymore. “You are naught but a thought in my mind’s eye.”
Her whispered hope seemed to lure him closer.
“Is that how you explain it?” His gaze grew bolder, dipping lower to her mouth. Her shoulders. Her breasts.
She felt it as sure as a touch and her body reacted instantly, a tight ache making her breath hitch.
“A ghost, perhaps.” If this were a penny novel, he would most certainly be a wraith of some sort. A dark figure conjured from maidenly fears.
