by Candace Camp
Violet chuckled. “He would not tease you if you were not such an easy target.”
“Trust you to take his side.” Coll gave her a fulminating look.
“Now, Coll . . .” She looped both arms around his arm, her tone that of one speaking to a cranky toddler. “You know that it’s your side I favor.”
He gave her a sideways look, but he looped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her up against him. “Even though I’m a man steeped in sin?”
“No.” She slipped her arm beneath his jacket and around his waist, leaning into him and laying her other hand on his chest. “ ’Tis not your sins that make Angus love to poke at you. It’s that you take them so to heart.” She moved her hand in a soothing circle over his chest.
Coll brought his other hand up to cover hers, his steps slowing. “It is wrong of me to do this with you.” His voice was low and he did not look at her. “But I canna stay away. I tried the other night not to come to your room, but I could not do it.”
“I’m glad. I want you to come to me.” She glanced up at him. “I cannot help but wonder why you want to stay away.”
“I don’t want to! If I did only what I wanted, I fear I’d never leave your bed. But I am compromising you.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You should. You should have more care for yourself.” He paused. “I should take more care of you.”
“I am able to take care of myself. There is no reason for you to do so. I’m aware of what I am doing; I accepted the consequences when I made the decision not to marry. I refuse to foreswear any pleasure in my life simply because I choose not to have a husband.” Violet pulled to a stop and turned to him, her eyes searching his face. “Coll . . . I am beginning to think that you regard me as a fallen woman. Is that true? Have I lowered myself in your eyes by coming to your bed?”
20
What?” Coll’s brows shot up, the shock on his face gratifying. “No! How can you—I dinna say that.”
“No? You seem so concerned that others will think less of me that I can only wonder if you think less of me.”
“No. Never.” He took both her hands and brought them to his lips. “I think you are a woman of great honesty and worth. I am amazed . . . honored . . . that you have given yourself to me.” He paused. “It’s me I think less of for taking what you have given.”
“I do not think less of you.” She copied him, bringing his hands up to press her lips to them, one by one. She could see the shudder run through him. “I do not find you lacking in any way, be it honor or intelligence or looks.” She grinned. “And if I am so worthy and honest, then you should value my opinion.”
A smile broke across his face, and he kissed her, hard and fast. “You have an argument for everything.”
“I do.” She stepped into him, her arms sliding up his back beneath his jacket, as she went on tiptoe to kiss him. “And this is my best argument.”
He surrendered himself to her kiss, his body curving around her, his mouth drinking her in. Violet felt the surge of heat through his body, the quickening of his breath, and she melted into him in response. Finally he tore his mouth from hers and stood, his head resting against hers, as he pulled himself back under control.
With a final hard kiss to her forehead, he took her hand and started up the path again. “Come. We are here to search the castle, remember?”
“I know.” She fell in beside him, smiling. “But I can do more than one thing at a time. Cannot you?”
“I am a very single-minded man.”
They took the path toward Baillannan, but long before they reached the looming gray house, Coll took another trail that twisted through the trees, emerging finally onto a well-worn walkway. At the end of the path was a barren rise of land, and atop it stood the stark remains of white stone walls, mostly tumbled down, sticking up here and there from the ground like the bleached bones of some great animal.
Violet sucked in a breath. “It’s wonderful.” She moved forward eagerly.
“You’ve got that look in your eye.”
“What look?” She widened her eyes at him innocently.
“Like you’re about to start digging.”
She laughed. “Oh, no, this is much too recent for me. Still, it’s fascinating.” She strolled around the perimeter first, then moved in to study the pieces of walls remaining. “I don’t see any markings, do you?”
“I wouldn’t think there’s much place on the surface for hiding a treasure.” He glanced around the flat, barren land. “It’s too exposed. If my grandmother hid anything here, it would be in the cellars.”
He strode to the gaping hole at one end of the ruins, marked off with a wooden fence, and led her around the railing to the opposite end. “We’ve shored it up since Jack and Isobel found it. They tumbled off into the pit when the ground caved in on them.”
“Were they hurt?”
“It’d take more than that to kill that Englishman. Kensington’s got the devil’s own luck. And he fell first, so he was there to catch Isobel when she came looking to rescue him.”
“Life at Baillannan sounds . . . exciting.”
He chuckled. “Yes. Though it’s been quite dull lately. Here’s the ladder we built into the cellars. Better let me go down first to make sure it’s still sturdy.” He swung over the edge.
“Hmph. You just want to watch me coming down the ladder.”
He grinned up at her. “I’ll admit, I’ll enjoy the view.”
Violet followed him, bunching up her skirts with one hand to keep from entangling her feet. Coll lit the lantern sitting beside the ladder, and they began their exploration. Light from above did not penetrate the far reaches of the cellars, making the lantern necessary as they moved away from the cave-in. Piles of rubble partially blocked some corridors. Arches of stone and brick still held up the vaulted stone ceilings, braced in several places by new wooden beams.
“When were these put in?” Violet patted one of the rough beams.
“Jack and I did it the past few months.”
“You did a lot of work here.”
“We wanted to make sure it was safe. So no one else would get caught in a collapse.” He cast her a sheepish smile. “And we wanted to look for tunnels.”
“Did you find any?”
“One or two, but they’ve both been blocked by a cave-in. Back here, the chambers are dug into the rock.” Coll led her past a pile of rubble. As they ambled along, hand in hand, he said, “If we found the treasure, what would you do with the money?”
“I’m not sure.” She glanced over at him, surprised. “I hadn’t really thought past locating it. Would part of it be mine?”
“I don’t know why not. Who else would it belong to? A French monarchy that no longer exists? A prince long ago defeated? It wasn’t Malcolm Rose’s money. It has naught to do with Mardoun. No, I think if you and I found it, it would be ours.”
“Well . . . I wouldn’t have to depend on a patron to excavate. I could do as I want, go where I wish. And I’d want to do something for the education of women, which is currently absent. Not for women like me—”
“Are there any other women like you?” Coll grinned wickedly.
She sent him a quelling look. “I mean, women whose parents can afford to educate them. We at least are taught to read and write, and we can turn to books to educate ourselves. But education for the poor is woefully lacking, for both boys and girls. There are those who want to establish village schools, available to all. Perhaps I’d do that.”
“That seems a fine ambition.”
“What about you? What would you do with the money?”
“It would be grand not having to earn my keep. To be able to do just as I pleased, to spend my time making things, carving—it’s a heady thought. I’d want to do something for the crofters, too, though. I’ve thought of creating a place where they could own their strips of land and not be turned out on the whim of another. I imagine I could get Mardoun and Kensington to donate a
bit of their properties as well.”
“A new village—that sounds marvelous. And I shall set up a village school there.”
Coll laughed. “Now all we need to do is find the treasure.”
“Yes, that is a slight problem.” Violet sighed and looked around. “I haven’t seen any mark like the one on your knife. Or any carving at all, really.”
“Nae.”
“Do you think we’ve taken the wrong track? That the engraving on the sgian-dubh had nothing to do with the treasure? Or we’re looking in the wrong place?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know that there is a treasure. But not finding the sign here does not mean that it isn’t the key. It could be any number of other places—the graveyard in Kinclannoch or maybe we missed it at the Munro graves. We dinna know about the sign when we looked before. It could be around Meg’s cottage.”
“Perhaps even somewhere among the standing stones.”
“Aye, or at Baillannan itself.” He took her hand. “Come now, lass, dinna be discouraged. We still have the subcellars to explore. That’s where the secret room and the tunnel to the new house were.”
He led her back toward the entrance and down a narrow stone staircase. The long room below was so low-ceilinged that Coll had to stoop to walk through it. New wooden beams braced the walls. Carvings were along one wall, a strip of small rosettes repeated endlessly. It was hushed and still, the sound of their footsteps muffled by the dirt floor.
“This is the secret room.” He stopped before the wall at the end of the passage.
“Where?”
Coll reached into his pocket and pulled out a watch key. Holding the lantern up, he searched the strip of stone rosettes that decorated the wall close to the ceiling. To Violet’s surprise, he stuck the key into the center of one of the rosettes and turned it firmly. The wall separated along a thin line, and Coll swung the concealed stone door outward.
Violet pulled in a sharp breath of excitement. “That’s all it takes?”
“Aye. But you have to know about the key and which rosette to use. Those blasted flowers are all over the place at Baillannan; you could look till your eyes bleed and still miss the right one.” He ducked through the low doorway.
The small chamber inside was furnished, a table and chairs, bed, and cabinet seemingly waiting for its occupants. Candlesticks stood in the center of the small table.
“The tunnel to Baillannan is beyond the far wall; there’s another rosette to use. But it has collapsed halfway there.”
“Surely someone did not live down here.” Violet’s voice was hushed. An eerie quality to the small room seemed to call for low voices.
“We think it was the room where Malcolm used to meet Faye in secret.”
“Their trysting place.” Violet shivered. “It seems a little foreboding.”
“Maybe it was not back then, before murder was done here. We think Malcolm hid here when he returned after Culloden. Certainly he was killed here.” Coll pointed to the floor beside the table. “Jack and Isobel found the skeleton there, a dagger thrust in his back.”
Violet gazed down at the floor. “That’s a terrible price to pay for loving someone.”
“Mm. I think it was more for his betrayal than his love.”
“You’re a hard man, Coll.”
“He pledged himself to his wife, had children by her. And he broke that faith.”
“You think he deserved to die for that?” She studied him.
“Nae. Not to die. But I understand why Lady Cordelia hated him for it. I canna think of him as a tragic hero. He was off seeking glory, raising rebellion and bringing back treasure, but it was the rest of them, his women, his children, who were left to deal with the British soldiers and the punishment, the hunger and loss of land, the sorrow. A better man would have stayed to shoulder the burden.”
“You would have stayed.” Violet took his hand in both of hers and went up on tiptoe to brush a kiss across his lips.
“Aye, well, I’m not romantic.”
“Are you not? You seemed romantic enough last night.” She slanted a teasing glance up at him.
“Is that what you call it?” He cocked an eyebrow, his hands sliding around her waist and tugging her up flush against his body. “I’d have said I was desperate.”
Violet stretched sensuously, arching up against him. “Desperate?”
“Aye.” He bent to nuzzle her neck. “Hungry. Wild. Mad to have you. You always drive me to the brink. I can scarcely sit still of an evening, biding my time till I can come to your room, thinking about how it will be.” His mouth moved over her neck and face, punctuating his words with soft, breathy kisses. “Thinking how you’ll quiver beneath my hand and make those little moans, the way your eyes will close and that secret smile of yours when I enter you. Your face when you come all undone beneath me.”
“Coll . . .” She twined her fingers through his hair. “You’ll have me all undone right here.”
He let out a noise that might have been smugness or frustration or both, and his arms tightened around her, grinding her into his hard body. He kissed her as if he would never have another chance, his mouth searing, demanding. Violet welcomed the heat and the hunger, giving it back in full measure. The shattering of Coll’s control never failed to stir her, the passion that overrode his strength challenging and matching her own. Something wild was in him, barely leashed, and she ached to meet it, to tame him . . . and surrender herself.
“No.” He pulled back, setting her away from him. “I will not take you like this. Not here. Not in haste and secrecy. And by God not in the cellars where Malcolm Rose was slain.” Coll drew a long, shuddering breath. “I promised myself this day with you. No one to pry or see, no need to pretend we are nothing to each other. I told Mrs. Ferguson we would be here all day and not to hold supper for us. I am going to have you in my bed. In my home.”
Violet looked up at him from beneath her lashes, her mouth sultry and reddened from his kisses. “Then take me there.”
21
Violet scrambled up the ladder from the cellars, with Coll right behind her, his hand in a strategic place boosting her up over the edge.
“Coll!” She whipped around as she stepped out onto the ground, unsure whether she wanted more to scold him or to throw herself into his arms and pull him down on the ground with her.
“Yes, my dear?” He climbed out, the sack containing the food the cook had given them flung over his shoulder. Desire was stamped clear on his face, but a teasing twinkle accompanied the heat.
“I thought you wanted to go home to, um, ‘properly’ do this.”
“I do.” He grinned, hooking his arm around her waist and pulling her tight against him. He bent down to nip lightly at her earlobe. “But that does not mean I canna savor a few ‘improper’ liberties along the way.”
“So you think you can have it both ways?” She cocked an eyebrow.
He chuckled and leaned in to whisper, “I’d like to have it every way I can with you.”
Heat flooded her at his words, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her lips against the tender hollow of his throat.
Her name was a low rumble in his chest, and he dug his fingers into her buttocks, pressing her even more tightly against him. “Would you have us do it here? With Old Angus watching?”
“What!” Violet sprang back from him and whirled around, scanning the area. Behind her Coll laughed, and she gave him a black look.
“Well, he could be.” Coll cast a glance all around. “Look at all the trees out there he could be hiding behind.”
“Now I feel as if someone is watching us.” Violet scowled at him. She could not help but remember the day when she had walked home from Meg’s cottage and had along the way felt so strongly that someone had been hiding, watching. It gave her a little shiver to think about it.
“We could give him something to see.” Coll’s hand slipped beneath her cloak to glide over her body. “But I think that I would
rather have you all to myself.”
But they saw no one on their way to the dock, not even Old Angus. To Violet’s surprise, Coll rowed the boat straight across the loch and tied up near Meg’s cottage, taking the longer path around to the gatehouse. Avoiding Duncally sprang, she knew, from his desire to be apart and alone and freely together, and she wanted it as much as he.
Inside his house, Coll turned the lock, his face filled with both satisfaction and anticipation as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. But now that they were here, he seemed in no hurry. He stripped off his jacket and stoked the fire, letting its warmth seep into their bones. Bracing his hands on the mantel, he gazed down at her for a long moment, then bent to kiss her. He touched her nowhere but her mouth, and somehow the separation of inches between them was as arousing as if his hands had played over her body.
He stepped back and dropped into the chair before the fire, stretching his long legs out in front of him. His voice came out in a rasp: “Undress for me.”
Violet’s eyes widened with surprise. “What?”
“I want to watch you.”
His words coiled in her like a flame. Locking her gaze on his, she reached up and began to unfasten the small, round buttons. Her fingers moved with slow deliberation, and gradually the bodice sagged open, revealing a slice of white cotton chemise beneath. Violet slipped her arms from the dress and let it slide inch by inch down her body to pool at her feet on the floor.
Color flared along his cheekbones, and his chest rose and fell more rapidly. Violet untied her chemise and hooked her forefingers into the neckline, sliding them back and forth along her skin. The garment drooped lower and lower. She left it hanging, looped on her arms and barely covering the pink circles of her nipples, and reached down to undo the ties of her petticoats. The garments whispered down her legs, leaving her clad in only the flimsy covering of her pantalets and the chemise that barely clung to her breasts.
With a shrug, the chemise was gone, the full, round globes of her breasts freed. Coll sucked in his breath sharply, and her lips curved up at the sound. Violet’s smile teased and promised, beckoned and tempted, as she lifted her hands to pull the pins from her hair. He swallowed, his eyes fixed on her hair as bit by bit the strands slipped from her fingers. Soft as silk, her thick, dark hair spilled over her breasts, parting over the thrusting points of her nipples.
