Cathlin frowned. “There’s something else, isn’t there, Serita? Something you haven’t told me.”
“Dominic carries around a lot of ghosts, Cathlin. On his last job in Royal Protection duty I understand that the car he was in came under attack. When the bullets started flying, he did what he was trained to do—shoot first and ask questions later.”
Cathlin swallowed. “And?”
“I don’t know the details. They’re classified. But I know people died that day and…Dominic considered himself responsible. He left the profession he was very good at.”
Cathlin closed her eyes and shivered.
“He turned in his resignation after that. I understand that Harcliffe has come after him again and again—he’s never gone back.”
“Why won’t they leave him alone?” Cathlin asked bitterly.
“That’s James Harcliffe as much as government policy, I expect. I have heard that once Harcliffe has his claws in someone, he never pulls them out. It’s a matter of principle with him.” A shadow fell across the weathered flagstones. “But I expect I’d better be going. Just you remember what I told you, Cathlin.”
“I will.”
Dominic was framed in the broad oak doorway, his face cast in shadow. He looked at Cathlin for long moments. “You’d better come in now. The alarms are all triggered.”
Cathlin nodded. But still she did not move.
Are you carrying around the memories? she wanted to ask. You gave up your gun but did you give up everything that goes along with it?
But Cathlin said nothing. She wanted nothing more to do with the shadow world that had stolen her father, because it had brought her far too much pain already. And as Dominic stood unmoving, his face hidden by the shadows of the cloud-veiled moon, Cathlin decided he would hardly be likely to entrust her with any confidences.
She turned away. “I’m going down to have a last look at the wine.”
“Fine.”
STANDING IN THE COURTYARD with his hand on weathered stone ten centuries old and the wind in his face rich with the scent of a thousand roses, Dominic wished he was someone different, someone without ghosts and a past, someone who could be anything it took to make Cathlin O’Neill smile and laugh and feel whole again.
Someone who wasn’t plagued by memories.
But there was a job to be done and Dominic meant to see it through. Until it was completed, there was no time for dreams or carelessness or emotion—not if he hoped to protect Cathlin’s life.
He scowled down at a section of flagstone, nudging it with his toe. A section of rope lay half-hidden in the shadow of a stone. Small, cleanly sliced at both ends, it was twisted into a rough loop handle.
Dominic picked the rope up and turned it idly. The loop was like those used by French farm workers to carry cases of wine.
Frowning, he turned the rope to and fro in the moonlight. Then he saw the dark blotch of blood near one end.
Blood from their recent intruder?
Cursing, Dominic turned and ran for the cellars.
“CATHLIN?”
She wasn’t in the cellar. She wasn’t in the foyer. She wasn’t in Nicholas’s study. Fighting down his fear, Dominic hammered up the stairs to her room.
No sign of her.
A wild instinct brought him around with a start. “Cathlin, answer me!”
He raced along the hall to the kitchen and pounded down the stairs. She was standing before the broad rear windows, watching moonlight spill over a bank of white lilacs. There was a box on the table beside her and a glass in her hand.
Dominic knocked the elegant crystal goblet from her lips just as she was about to drink.
“Are you crazy?” Cathlin gaped down at the shattered glass.
“Did you drink any?”
Cathlin just stared at him.
“Did you drink any, damn it?”
She shook her head. “What’s wrong with you? That was exceptionally old and rare—”
“Poison, unless I miss my guess.” Dominic’s mouth set in an angry line.
“Poison? I don’t believe it.”
“It’s my job to be right, Irish. To spot things that are wrong, even when they look entirely unimportant. And it’s always in the little things.” Grimly, he shoved open the wooden case and studied the bottles inside. “Where was it from?”
“The card was from the Wine Department at Harrods.”
“Was it addressed to you by name?”
Cathlin nodded. “The gift of an old colleague of mine who works there now.”
“You’re absolutely sure of that?”
“I know his stationery, if that’s what you mean. We’ve worked together several times in the past. Dominic, this is ridiculous. You can’t really believe that a perfectly respectable wine expert from Harrods would try to poison me.”
“Someone tried to drive us off the road two days ago, remember? Nothing is impossible, O’Neill. You’d better remember that.” He lifted the cork and studied it carefully. “No cracks or needle marks.” He sniffed the rim. “But there’s a slight excess of acidity that shouldn’t be there, even in a markedly dry vintage like this. A few minutes longer and the aroma of any contaminants will have entirely dispersed.”
Cathlin frowned. “For an amateur, you know an awful lot about wine.” But then he wasn’t really an amateur, was he?
“Maybe.” Dominic shrugged as he wrapped the cork in cellophane. “Meanwhile, this goes up to London for testing.”
“Who, Dominic? Who would want to poison me?”
“Just about anyone. You’re the heart of this whole business, Cathlin. Without you, that wine doesn’t get certified and it loses its importance as auction material—or as the political football it might soon become. To bring in another expert with your credentials would take a fair amount of time, and by then, the wine would probably be gone.”
“Dear God.” Cathlin caught a sharp breath. “Was it…someone here today? Someone at the wedding?”
Dominic wasn’t about to share his worries with Cathlin, not when her face was sheet white and her fingers were trembling where she’d locked them at her waist. “I doubt it. Direct involvement like that is far too dangerous. Whoever did this was probably careful to put a dozen steps between this wine and himself.”
He ached to run his hands through that vibrant black hair, to pull her against his chest and hold her until he felt the tension slide away.
But he didn’t trust himself to do either. He had already gotten far more emotionally involved than was safe for either of them. “There’s no sense brooding, Irish. Tomorrow we’ll know more.” Jade eyes burning, he took in Cathlin’s pallor and her faint edge of fear. “Steady Irish.” His hand cupped her chin.
“Then someone tried—tried to poison me. It’s true.” She caught a ragged breath. “I’m frightened, Dominic. And I hate being frightened almost as much as I hate owing people—and I owe you for saving my life yet again.” She caught a tight breath. “Was it the same men who were in the car near Seacliffe?”
Dominic thought of lying, but gave up. She’d see through a lie anyway. “I can’t be sure. Not until James Harcliffe gets back to me with some answers. Now it’s time you were in bed.”
“What about you?”
“Not yet.” His face was grim. “I’ve still got a few things to clear up down here.”
“By that you mean calls you don’t want me to hear.”
He didn’t deny it. “Get some rest, Irish. Something tells me you’re going to need it tomorrow.”
Yes, it had been one hell of a wedding day, Dominic decided grimly.
SITTING IN THE ABBEY’S dark kitchens, Dominic made three calls. Each was to an old friend, each a man whose life he had saved over the years during his career as a bodyguard. And each man was delighted to repay an old debt by coming to the abbey and helping Dominic keep the vast grounds secure, no questions asked.
But when he was done, Dominic didn’t go upstairs. Instead he pulled out th
e folders Harcliffe had given him, folders that laid bare the inside of Cathlin O’Neill’s young mind, as recorded just after her mother’s death.
The reports were chilling, and made even more chilling by the cold, precise, and utterly impersonal language they used.
…deep trauma…unpredictable formation…uncertain prognosis…
Dominic read through page after page of clinical reports that recorded everything, but explained absolutely nothing.
The conclusion? Cathlin O’Neill’s memory of that night was clean, swept bare by a trauma that a ten-year-old mind was beyond enduring. The prognosis, couched in five pages of extremely technical language, was that any answers the police hoped for would have to be gotten elsewhere. The girl would never remember what had happened that day at Draycott Abbey.
Except in one unlikely condition.
Dominic sat forward, frowning as he read the sentence over and over again. One condition might trigger Cathlin’s memory, and that was if she experienced another trauma of equal and similar severity.
Dominic leaned back and let his breath out slowly. Was that the purpose of these threats to Cathlin? Had someone learned of her past and hoped to trigger those lost memories? Severance, perhaps, as a perverted form of revenge? Or had it been one of the smug, tanned faces who had smiled at Cathlin in London at the charity auction, then gone home to arrange for her murder?
Too many bloody questions.
Grimly, Dominic checked the entrances once more and then the alarms, though he knew they were all in perfect order. After that he made his way upstairs, drawn inexorably to a room with red roses, where moonlight played over the polished floor.
She was sleeping, her hands flung out, her hair a dark veil against the white pillow. He moved closer, feeling faintly guilty, yet unable to take his eyes away. She twisted as he watched, shoved at the sheet, tugged at the pillow.
Staring down, he heard Cathlin’s soft breathing and the wind in the branches outside the window.
Memories, again. How strange that he should have too many memories and she too few. And Dominic wondered what she was seeing in those restless dreams.
SILENCE. PANIC THAT RANthrough the darkness on sharp little feet. Her heart, pounding like knives in her chest.
The little girl sat up, fingers clenched on the strange sheets in the strange bed in the strange, beautiful old house.
No one there. No one but shadows.
She pushed out of her bed and ran to the door, with the wind from an opened window blowing her hair like cobweb strands across her eyes.
Fingers tight, she ran past the hard-faced portraits, past the tapestries her mother had come to study, past all the pretty rooms with all their pretty things.
At the great oak door she stopped.
It lay open, open to darkness, open to shadows and the murmur of the moat.
She ran into the night, calling for her mother, calling wildly. And then she saw.
A dark shadow was spread against the lawns. Beneath the folds of her favorite amber plaid lay her mother’s body. Unmoving. Arms twisted, legs bent.
All wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong…
And then ten-year-old Cathlin O’Neill began to scream.
Afterward all she could remember was the blood.
THE WINDOW WAS OPEN AGAIN, curtains drifting. Just as before, her hair played over her face, faint as cobwebs. She ran out of her room, drawn to the faint glow of light, her eyes wide, full of shadows.
“Dominic?”
No answer. Dimly she heard the hammer of water. She shoved open the bathroom door. “D-Dominic.”
The water stilled. “Damn it, Cathlin, what are you—” His anger died as he saw her face, her rigid stance. “Hold on, Irish.” His eyes never left her face as he tugged a towel around his lean body and strode through the drifting steam. “I’m here, love. What’s happened?”
She moved against him, oblivious to the beads of water that ran against her chin and seeped through her gown. “A dream. Just another stupid, silly dream.” She caught a ragged breath, hearing her heart pound.
Hearing his heart pound.
Feeling his muscles, tight and damp beneath her cheek.
Wanting him. Oh, God, wanting him more than she’d ever wanted anything.
But there was something wrong. Ever since she’d met this man, he’d drawn upon the shadowed part of her mind, pulling images out of the vacuum of her past. And every day she spent in his company the pull grew worse, until Cathlin knew one day she’d shatter.
“It’s okay, Irish. You’re safe now.”
“Am I?” Cathlin gave a shaky laugh, her eyes locked on the drifting mist, on a blur of blood she could never quite forget—even when she remembered nothing else. “And if I’m safe, it’s only because you’re not. And, I—I don’t think I could stand it if any more blood were spilled here. Do you understand? It’s gone too deep.”
Dominic’s fingers slid into her hair, cradling her head. “Does this mean you’ve remembered something?”
Cathlin shook her head. “Only the old dream. The blood, just like always. And then—nothing. But now it’s worse, because the memories are only inches away. Waiting. Hanging.”
Callused fingers smoothed over her lips. “Take it easy. They’ll just keep coming, Cathlin. That’s part of remembering.”
“I thought I wanted this, but I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. I didn’t expect to feel like I was a child again.”
“Shhh.” He eased his arms around her waist, his long damp body warm against hers.
Cathlin took a ragged breath. Her head rose. “Could I make you forget if I tried, Dominic? Could I make us be two strangers, just for one night?”
A muscle beat at his temple. “You don’t know what you’re saying, O’Neill. It’s late, and you’re exhausted.”
“I know, Dominic. I know exactly what I’m asking. So do you.”
The air shimmered between them, heavy, slow, electric.
As if compelled, his hands slid lower, trapping the pulse that throbbed at her neck. “The timing’s wrong. Damn it, all wrong.”
“I don’t care.”
Slowly, slowly his head bent over hers.
And she leaned into him, leaned into the unbowing strength of his body, into the mystery of his arms and the unbearable pleasure he was making her feel.
All the denials crumbled. All the protests fled.
All that was left was heat and hunger and a hundred kinds of needing. Lips, light and hot, feathering her skin. Her heart racing.
“Dominic, I can’t—breathe. It’s not supposed to—to feel like this.”
“Like what?”
Trembling, her fingers inched into his hair. “Like…forever.”
“Who said?”
She made a low uncertain sound. Her hands slid deeper into his hair. Dimly, she realized she was pulling him closer.
And Cathlin didn’t care. She wanted him close. She wanted their bodied meshed, with only sweat and skin between them.
She wanted him.
With all his demons and his fears. With all his flash and his careful brand of honor hidden beneath.
Warrior’s honor. Warrior’s heart.
She raised her hand, smoothing the crease at his brow. She saw the face of a man who’d looked into his heart and found his strengths and weaknesses. Each cold memory had left another line etched on that face. But the victories were there too, each set into the proud, sensual flare of his mouth.
And her skin was aflame as he caught her mouth with his. Lips hard, he slid across her, shaped her to his passion.
No fear. No room for fear. Too much need.
He made a low, rough sound. A sound of pain that left her utterly possessed.
“Please, hurry. Don’t let me think. Don’t let the dreams get through. Just once. Just tonight.”
Silent like the warrior he was, he moved behind her. Hands across her waist, he pulled her against him. “Sorry, Irish,” he whispered huskily. “Tonight hu
rrying’s the last thing on my mind.” He found the hungry little hollow behind her ear and planted slow kisses down to the bend of her shoulder. There he nudged aside the soft gown.
“Can’t you…go a little faster?”
His low chuckle drifted over her naked skin. “Not a chance. Hell, Irish, I’ve got whole continents to discover.” His voice darkened. “And paradise to claim.”
“Dominic, something else. Serita told me.”
Silence.
“About your last job in Royal Protection. She also told me about La Trouvaille.”
More silence.
“What I’m trying to say is I’m sorry. You’re doing wonderful things over there, and I’m just making all this harder for you.” Her hands tightened. “I’m sorry you had to come back to a world you hated.”
More silence. Thicker now.
“Dominic?”
A raspy breath. “Not now, golden eyes. Only this now.” He turned her face and his tongue swept hers. “Only the heat to stop the nightmares.” Lace shifted. Linen rose.
Then only her heat, melted against his. Only her soft, muffled breath as he carried her to her room and laid her on the chintz settee beside the window. Moonlight pooled against her skin below curtains that drifted like ghostly fingers. The air carried the perfume of a thousand roses mixed with the warmth of lilacs.
He was confident in this as in all else, his hands sure in their possession. Cathlin watched his face, one side silver with moonlight and the other cast into darkness. She wanted then to be the one who pulled him from those shadowed memories. She wanted to be the one who made the laughter brighten his eyes and smiles crinkle his hard mouth.
She wanted. Oh, how she wanted. But he was moving too fast, spinning his dark enchantment over a body that was fast turning into a stranger’s. Wanting struck her and a hot, sweet melting.
“Dominic, I—”
“Not now, Irish. I’m…busy.” He bent his mouth to her throat, to her collarbone, to the high, sweet arch of her breast.
“Dominic, why—”
“Do you always talk this much?”
Only when I’m frightened. Only when my heart is about to slam right out of my chest. Because it feels like I’ve wanted you this way forever and nothing has ever felt more natural than your skin touching mine.
Enchantment & Bridge of Dreams Page 36