Earl of Darkness

by Alix Rickloff

  If he stopped now, she’d shatter.

  She pushed a flop of hair off his brow. Lifted her head to trace the seam of his mouth with her tongue. Splayed her hand over the marbled coolness of his chest. “Don’t you dare come the prude on me now.”

  A grim smile flashed in the reaches of his gaze, a wicked greed suffusing his face. His hands and his mouth creating a twisting torture spiraling up through her. Liquid fire running with her blood. The beat of her heart thunderous in her ears as he tightened his hold upon her soul.

  He sheathed himself in her heat. Lowered his mouth to hers, sweeping her along on a kiss, claiming her as his own. She rocked forward, taking him deep into her. Gasping back a trembling moan. He thrust again and again in a fierce bid to outrace memory. To find release from a past holding the killing strength of a weapon. She knew, because she did too.

  Pleasure-infused destruction.

  Desire’s sweet tension tightened. Crushed her under collapsing wave after wave of orgasm. She cried out, clutching his shoulders. Spine arched. Head back. Felt his shuddering ripple as he found release. As he spilled himself into her. As his sated weight pressed her into the mattress’s smothering cocoon.

  She closed her eyes on what she’d done. Struggled to feel shame or guilt. Some emotion signaling she wasn’t completely lost to propriety.

  Couldn’t do it.

  The corpse lay facedown in the mud, his bottle green coat twisted up around his chest, mud and blood spattering his buckskin breeches, a spent pistol clutched in his cold hand. Lazarus wiped his blade on the grass before shoving it back into its scabbard. Pushing aside his coat to check his own bloodied side.

  The man’s bullet had broken a rib when it hit. Slashed its way through muscles. Grazed a lung. Spent itself deep within him. Pain squeezed Lazarus until every breath he took sent a shock wave reaction through his whole system. It wouldn’t last. It never did. The agony would dull. Fade. Leave nothing but the echo of its force behind. A memory of pain. Of death. Of peace.

  Mage energy would have sufficed to end the man’s life. A clean kill. Murder woven with words and released on a breath of air. A coward’s way. No, he preferred to close with his quarry. Blade on blade. To scent a man’s fear. See the cleverness in his eyes. Hear his labored breathing and his curses as they struggled. To exercise the skills and training he’d learned on the tilting grounds and fortress yards. Murder might be his purpose, but he could pretend. He could remember.

  He moved to catch the man’s skittish horse lurking just out of reach. Smelling death in the air, it sought to escape him as it would a predator. Lashed out with teeth and hooves, its nostrils wide, its ears flat against its head.

  Lazarus allowed it to fight. Allowed it to tire.

  West, the man had said. Kilronan had been traveling west, though he’d offered no more specifics than that. Belfoyle lay west, the principal seat of the Earls of Kilronan standing watch upon the coast. Could they have been going there? No, the man had seemed certain. He’d overheard His Lordship speaking. Had heard the word Killeigh. They planned to turn off at Killeigh. That way lay the mountains. The craggy sweep of the Slieve Aughty. And Kilronan was no fool. He had to know Belfoyle would be the first place Lazarus would search.

  Exhausted by fear, the horse finally let itself be caught, its sides heaving and trembling as Lazarus smoothed a hand down its neck. Crooned to it until it calmed beneath his hand. A memory blossomed from the barren soil of his consciousness. He’d owned a horse like this one once. Same steel blue coat. Same fathomless black eyes. Same fiery temperament. Neirin, he’d named it.

  He pushed aside his shirt one last time. No shredded flesh. No gaping hole. Nothing but a puckered scar where death had been turned aside. Even his movements came easier, the sharp edges of this recent pain receding to be lost amid a groundswell of deep-rooted anguish.

  Swinging into the saddle, he lengthened the leathers. Gathered the reins. Turned the gelding’s head to the west. “Walk on, Neirin.”

  Aidan woke from a tumultuous dream where Barbara Osborne’s pillowed curves and soft valleys writhed beneath him, nails digging like talons down his back. As he climaxed, her face changed. Became elven-narrow, high cheekbones, delicate jaw, flashing jade green eyes. Raven hair spilling across his chest in a shining wave. A body supple as a bow with moves to make a man weep.

  He ran a shaking hand down his face. Sought to erase the disturbing vision even as his cock throbbed in frustration. He rolled onto his stomach. Buried his head in the pillow. Let loose with a string of muffled curses. He’d bolloxed it up. That was for damn sure. And what was worse, he’d do it again. Wanted to feel Cat close around him. To watch her face go bright with ecstasy. To chase her ghosts away.

  His ghosts? They’d never leave. But he could bring her relief even if he found none for himself.

  He flopped onto his back. Stared into the gray blue of dawn. Listened to the rattle and hiss of rain beyond his window. And rode the memory of Cat’s lovemaking from the cliff edge of Daz’s revelations.

  “You need to eat, miss. You’re wraith thin.”

  Maude shoved a plate under Cat’s nose. Crossed her meaty arms as if daring Cat to argue with her.

  The smell of food turned her attention from the part of her cringing at the thought of facing Aidan. Habit kept her eating long after she was full. It was something to do.

  More mistress than maid in this odd household, Maude shuffled as she refilled platters. Checked the tea. Scolded the housemaids chattering in the hall on their way upstairs. Finally, she huffed her bulk into a chair. Pulled a flask from her apron pocket, pouring a share into a bone china cup. Topped it with tea from the pot. Swigged it down before turning her attention toward Cat. “He’s not worth your fretting yourself to the grave. No man is.”

  Cat froze with a fork halfway to her mouth, her meal settling like a stone in the pit of her stomach.

  Helping herself to a piece of toast, Maude chewed with loud smacking noises. “I’ve put three in the ground. Left the fourth after he struck me with a shovel handle. Can’t say as I ever mourned for one of ’em. Full of their own bluster and not a one with the sense the gods gave a loon.”

  “He’s different,” Cat answered without thinking.

  Maude offered her smug sympathy. “And you said that about the first one too, didn’t you?”

  Cat went rigid, a new awareness of this quivering mountain of a woman in her soiled apron and heavy wooden clogs, her frizzy, hennaed hair pinned in a lopsided mess beneath a wrinkled cap. “You’re Other.”

  Maude plucked another piece of toast from the rack. “Did you think Daz Ahern would have any about the place who didn’t carry the blood of the Fey? The grousy old coot’s powers wax and wane along with his madness, but he understands that well enough.”

  “Were you here when—”

  She puffed up like a proud broody hen. “Aye. Been here going on twelve years.” Smoothed a hand over her apron as if she preened in her best silk gown. “I seen the rise. Cleaned up after the crash. Always been like that for us women. We’re there to mop the spills and dry the tears. It’s what we’re best at.” Her pointed stare flamed Cat’s cheeks. “Am I right?”

  Last night. Being drawn from her reading by the horrible sound of Aidan’s grief. Finding him prostrate and sobbing like a child. That’s all it had been. Sympathy sex. She’d felt sorry for him. But one didn’t go around sleeping with every person one felt bad for. So why had she given herself to Aidan? Why had it been so easy?

  “The boy what broke your heart. He was a right bugger. And this Kilronan?”

  Cat’s mind slammed shut against the answer floating at the edge of her mind.

  No. She’d not let any hint of that emotion see a glimmer of daylight. That way lay destruction.

  “He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met,” she answered. Truth as far as it went.

  Maude uncorked the flask. This time bypassing the teacup altogether. “I’m thinking not. He’s a pretty bau
ble for any woman to catch. Looks. A flashy title,” she fanned herself with her apron hem. “I’d have a go at him myself if I thought I stood a gallows’ chance.”

  Cat frowned. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve met handsome gentlemen.” Though none with Aidan’s turbulent vitality. “And titles never impressed me.” Much to the lasting chagrin of her parents. “It’s something else. I can’t explain it.” And why she strained to define her relationship to Maude of all people, she didn’t know.

  “You don’t need to be explaining anything to me at all, at all. The body knows what it wants and there’s little the head can do about it when the blood runs hot.” Maude rocked forward in her chair, spearing Cat with a wizened stare that had naught of stage farce about it. “As long as you understand how it ends, there’s no harm in enjoying the pleasures what come in a lover’s arms. Easier in some respects. You can always leave when the shovel comes out, can’t you?” She leaned back, cackling at her own joke.

  Cat stood to leave this disturbing interview. The old woman may have finagled her way into Ahern’s confidences and even into his bed, but that didn’t give her the right to treat Cat like some wayward daughter in need of advice. “Good day,” she nodded in imitation of her mother’s best quell-the-servants tone.

  Maude just grinned and shook her head. “You can act the great lady if you like, Catriona O’Connell, but I’ll tell you what you be needing to hear for your own good. No man wants to come second to a woman’s bed. No man wants to think he’s being compared and found lacking. And no man wants another’s leftovers. It’s just the sad facts.”

  Had it been said in any but the most compassionate tones, Cat might have bristled. Argued. Defended. Instead the words fell into the abyss of her own insecurities. She knew them for truth. Had known her future as soon as Jeremy’s seed had borne fruit. As soon as her son had slid into the world, blue-fragile and bastard.

  Maude gave a passing imitation of a grandmotherly smile, though she was clearly out of practice. “If you’re intent on playing with fire, I’ll not gainsay you. But I warn you—guard your heart. Protect it like you would a child.”

  The abyss opened, sucking Cat under. Crushed her with a life-ending grave weight. For in the end, she’d failed at that too.

  “Maude says you’ve been out here for hours. Didn’t come in for dinner.”

  The kitten froze inches away from Cat’s outstretched hand before scrabbling under a broken board. A half hour’s toil all for naught.

  She leaned back against a stall partition, drawing her legs underneath her. “Maude needs to mind her own business.”

  She felt Aidan sink onto his haunches beside her. His shadow coming between her and the sun. The masculine, smoky, bay rum scent of him filling her nostrils.

  Chewing her lip, she drew circles in the dirt with the tip of a finger. It kept her from having to look him in the eye. She’d been here before. Felt the blood rush of attraction. Become stupid with lust. Paid a life-altering price. She couldn’t afford it again. But every day she remained trapped in Aidan’s company brought a night when she lay awake and frustrated with a need she knew all too well.

  “Cat?” He tipped her chin toward him. Searched her face.

  She gazed upon those chiseled granite features, the sharp angle of his jaw, the stubborn chin, the hooded eyes whose flinty gaze could penetrate with spearlike precision. Bracing herself, she blurted, “I shouldn’t . . . last night . . . it was wrong, but you were . . . and I—”

  While he fumbled, “It’s not your fault . . . I never meant it to go so far . . . never blame you—”

  They spoke over one another in a jumbled rush before coming to a ragged halt fraught with nervous laughter. She started to rise, but he caught her hand. Drew her back down so they met face to face and eye to eye. “I’m no saint, Cat. I’ve never pretended to be. And what you offered, I couldn’t resist. But—”

  Of course, she should have expected the but. Should have known he’d be quick to extricate himself from a tricky situation. She struggled to rescue her hand.

  “Hear me out,” he urged.

  “Hear you tell me I’m not for someone like you? That it’s not for a belted earl to sully his family honor with a whore like me?” Her chest went achy and tight just saying the word. Then anger barreled in behind, spilling out of her in a torrent she couldn’t stop. Wrenching herself loose, she straightened with a look that spat fire. “You pulled me into your life with no thought to what it might cost me. Would Miss Osborne have stood with you against Lazarus? Or helped you translate a diary that left her retching into her slops jar for hours after? Does she even know you’re Other? I wager that’ll go down well with her high-in-the-instep philanthropic friends. She may be respectable, but she’s not half the woman I am. Admit it.”

  “All right. I admit it.”

  She sucked in a startled breath. “What?”

  A self-satisfied gleam sparkled in his eyes. “I said I admit it. I was selfish to drag you into this mess, but you’ve taken everything thrown at you with soldier courage. You’re a marvel.”

  “That’s not—”

  An annoying smile played at the edges of his mouth. “What you expected? I know. I’m full of surprises.”

  Rising to stand in front of her, he crushed her against him. Silenced her with a kiss. A spine-tingling blaze of heat turning every ironclad intention to a drippy puddle of desire.

  It was only hours later that she realized he’d never finished his sentence. What had he been about to say? What “but” still lurked in her future?

  The sconces had been doused, lamps turned down, leaving the staircase shrouded in shadows. The quiet, sharp-eyed servants had long since been sent to their attic bedchambers for the night to be replaced by the quieter, sharp-eyed mice who rustled the walls and wainscoting.

  Cat paused at the bottom riser, a hand on the banister as she peered up into the long dark tunnel of the stairwell. Not out of fear. Terror of the dark had long since left her. Instead, her eye fell upon the masculine silhouette of the man towering behind her, one candlestick-laden arm raised high, his unruly hair standing around his head like a crown, his burly-broad shoulders and long muscled legs etched in black.

  “Let me.” The voice rumbled through her like an echo as his arm reached around her to light the way.

  She shook off fatigue and fancy. Glanced back with a nod of thanks as she lifted her skirts to climb. But a foot caught in the hem of her gown. Stumbling, she barked a shin on the hard edge of the step. Grabbed for the banister. Instead her hand fell on Aidan’s steadying arm, his body disturbingly close now that she knew the hard muscles that lay under that fabric. The glide of athletic assurance in a body trained for bolder actions than gentlemanly falderal.

  Cat bit back the unladylike oath on the tip of her tongue as she rubbed at her leg. Tried to forget the man hovering solicitously beside her. As if that could ever happen now.

  “Tipsy on Daz’s claret?” came Aidan’s wry comment. “I’d have thought a good brewer’s daughter like yourself would carry a stronger head for drink.”

  “Correction. Brewer’s stepdaughter. Sailor’s daughter.”

  “So it’s not a head for drink but a mouth for swearing. It all begins to make sense.”

  She was glad he found it so. She was topsy-turvy and tumbled with emotions, feeling as tossed as a juggler’s ball. Looking up, she found herself caught in the bronze brown reaches of his laughing eyes. His teasing white smile.

  Her heart squeezed with an ache she thought she’d put far behind her while heat burned a face already tired from hours spent reading. Should she? Shouldn’t she? Could she walk away when all was over? Would she have to? Could there be a future where no future ought to be?

  “Aidan?” she whispered.

  His brows quirked in look of half surprise, but then he sobered, his face growing serious. “Come with me, Catriona. I’ll not let you fall.”

  An answer to her thought. A reassurance against the hes
itation plaguing her.

  At the top of the stairs, he paused. And with a steadying breath and a heart full of doubt, yet fuller of hope, she followed him.

  Aidan drew her into the room, closing the door behind them. Pulling her back against him. A hand at her waist. Another curving around to cup her breast. Brushing her nipple. Nuzzling her neck. Skimming the sensitive flesh just behind her ear. “Gods, Cat. I’ve been fantasizing about this all day.”

  She could tell. His erection was very much in evidence, and she ground into him, aroused by his sharp intake of breath.

  “Wildcat,” he chuckled, the rumble of his laughter a heady vibration jumping through her.

  She tried twisting in his arms, but he held her captive, his grip like iron, the heat of his body raising a sheen of sweat between her shoulder blades. Between her breasts.

  “Not so fast. Not this time,” he whispered.

  Pushing aside her hair, he slid his tongue down her exposed neck. Releasing one button of her gown at a time. His tongue following the curve of her spine.

  The gown slid to the floor in a muslin puddle joined quickly by petticoats and stays.

  His other hand continued to move over her breasts in teasing passes that had her nipples puckered and painful.

  She leaned back into him, rubbing herself against the swollen size of him, loving the sizzle of desire burning its way through her like blood on fire.

  He groaned, a hand dropping to skim her mound until she responded with a whimper of her own.

  Then with a deft sweep of his body, he had her pinned against the door, his gaze devouring the length of her until she felt herself go wet and ready for whatever he had in mind.

  Dropping to his knees, he reached up. Untied the ribbons of one garter. Rolled the stocking to her ankle, his teeth grazing the length of her leg, pressing kisses against her inner thigh. He repeated the procedure with her other leg, leaving her jelly-kneed and throbbing.

  And then he was between her legs, his lips and tongue dipping to taste, jolts of pure pleasure shooting through her. He wouldn’t let her fall? Think again. She was tumbling head over heels. Plummeting through a sea of lush seduction. Everywhere he touched her, a lit fuse. Everywhere his lips moved against her, a devouring explosion.