She swiftly skimmed him, searching for evidence of blood or small puncture wounds. Nothing visible. She relaxed the tiniest bit. She scrutinized the dead rats. “There never used to be so many of them.”
He scoffed, “Oh, and you’re accustomed to spending a great deal of time in this abyss?” His angry blue gaze roamed the cell. “Little witch that you are, somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
He tossed off the last scrap of material, then rotated and flexed his wrists. “I hope you brought fresh water. At least I can clean the scratches.”
Crossing his legs, he relaxed into the chair. Casually, as if he were carrying on a cordial conversation in the finest drawing room, he said, “I’ve decided to rescind my vow of never striking a woman.”
Adaira rested her rear on her heels. “What a surprise,” she quipped in a futile attempt to cover the frisson of fright freezing her blood.
His hooded gaze sank to her buttocks. “A spoilt, troublesome termagant like you deserves a firm hand on her enticing posterior.”
Leaving the sack by the door, she stood. “As you’ll never be alone with me, or for that matter, see me again once I go above, the likelihood of you ever touching me is less than a snowflake’s chance of surviving in hell.”
She lifted the lantern from the floor, and with her spine ramrod stiff, marched away, her boots clicking rhythmically on the stone floor.
“I’ll send Ewan straightaway,” Adaira called without turning around. She’d no desire to lay eyes on that scunner, Marquardt, ever again. He’d been nothing but a troublesome nuisance.
She’d send Ewan. If she could find him.
This time Marquardt didn’t scream at her for taking the light. Evidentially he’d grown accustomed to the dungeon’s hellish gloom. Fitting since he was a spawn of the devil. She could feel his evil glare on her. What other reason could there be for the peculiar fluttering in her belly and tingling along her nerves?
Consumed with her thoughts, Adaira trudged along the corridor. Was Ewan still within the castle? He’d been absent over three weeks. He also had responsibilities in Craigcutty. He might well be out and about the estate.
“This way, Yvette.”
Aubry?
Her cousin’s distant voice carried far in the silence of the dungeon.
Adaira stumbled to a halt. After the grief Aubry had caused Yvette, what was her sister-in-law doing in the keep’s bowels with her?
Aubry had lied to Yvette, claiming Ewan was her betrothed, and he’d only married Yvette for her fortune. Complete and utter nonsense, of course. Aubry’s vicious fabrications had nearly destroyed Ewan and Yvette’s love. Aubry was every bit as wicked as the fiend Adaira had left stewing in his cell moments ago.
Adaira extinguished her light. She crept along the passageway on her toes. The leather of her boots made little scuffing creaks. Dratted boots. Impossible to walk quietly in them.
She took a couple more tentative steps, then stopped to listen. Whatever was Yvette thinking, accompanying Aubry into the dungeon? Another half dozen strides. Adaira knew Yvette couldn’t abide Aubry and had made a point to avoid her these past weeks.
Four more quick paces. Something was too smoky by half. Was there someone else in the dungeon? Someone waiting for Aubry?
Adaira bit the inside of her cheek. But who?
“Where exactly is Seonaid?” Yvette asked, her voice quivering slightly. “Are you certain this is the shortest way?”
Adaira sucked in a silent gulp of air. Seonaid?
“I told you, near the wetlands, and yes, this route is far shorter than going around the outer wall,” Aubry said.
Wetlands? Adaira went rigid. Aubry lied.
Seonaid was tending a wounded dog, unless she’d gone to the wetlands for herbs. Adaira crept forward another pair of steps. Her confounded heels announced each movement. She sat down, then pried off the tight boots, refusing to contemplate what she might be sitting in. Soundlessly, she scrambled upright. Her progress, now silent, she hurried along the passage.
Every instinct told Adaira her contemptible cousin was leading Yvette into a trap. Adaira didn’t dare run for help. She’d risk losing them if she didn’t stay on their trail.
Throughout the depths of the keep, lay a labyrinth of passageways, dozens of chambers and doors, and at least as many subchambers. If Adaira lost track of the women, she’d have a deucedly wicked time finding them again.
She strained to see in the blackness. A light glowed faintly in the distance, coming closer. There they were. A few moments later, Yvette and Aubry walked past the end of the long corridor Adaira occupied. Should she shout? What if Aubry had a weapon? Would she use it on Yvette? Aubry had been trained in weaponry right alongside Adaira and her sisters. And if her cousin had an accomplice, Adaira wanted to know who it was.
She flattened herself against the wall accidentally kicking a loose piece of stone. It rattled noisily. She stooped low and pressed against the cold, dank stones.
Yvette gasped and stopped. She looked directly into the corridor where Adaira crouched.
“Just rats,” Aubry said. “Hurry, we’re almost there.”
Yvette and Aubry continued to talk in hushed tones. The soft rustling of their skirts and the swish of their slippered feet faded away.
Adaira crept forward to follow them. A door clicked closed in the distance, and she heard them no more. Feeling her way along the wall, she paused at the end of the passage. She strained her eyes for the slightest trace of light.
She took a hesitant step forward. Confound it. She needed a match to relight her lantern. A muffled sound rent the stagnant air. Was that a scream? The hair on the nape of Adaira’s neck rose.
“Dear God, Yvette!” Adaira choked out.
Without hesitation she turned and in the lightless gloom, felt her way along the wall. Half-running, she awkwardly rushed back in the direction of Marquardt.
He had matches.
A faint flicker of amber glimmered ahead. Sprinting, she tore back to his cell, scraping her hands along the rough wall. She slid to a stop at the sight before her. He stood washing himself, naked from the waist up.
Holy Mother of God. He’s beautiful.
At Adaira’s inarticulate sound, surprise, quickly followed by discomfiture, swept his face and lingered in his eyes. Fine chestnut-brown hair covered his glistening muscled chest and disappeared into the vee of his unfastened pantaloons.
Her gaze involuntarily whizzed the length of his body. A hot flush rushed from her neck to her forehead. She gawked, jaw gaping. She was certain the sensation whipping across her senses was pure lust. Astonishment widened her eyes. Marquardt might be a knave of the worst sort, but he had the form of a Greek god.
More’s the pity.
“What the hell are you doing back here?” he snarled.
“Matches,” she gasped, thrusting the lantern at him. “I need matches. Aubry tricked Yvette.”
“Aubry? Who the blazes is Aubry?”
“My cousin on my father’s side.” Adaira’s lower lip began to tremble. “I saw them together, and then I heard a scream.”
Tears trickled over the rims of her eyes. She scrubbed at them angrily. She hadn’t the time for waterworks.
Marquardt went rigid. “A scream?”
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 male
ness 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.”
The Earl's Enticement (Castle Bride Series) Page 10
