The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie hp-6

by Jennifer Ashley

  “You’re going to tell me all about it,” Daniel said. No question, no asking her.

  “I can’t.” Shame, misery, and pure rage clogged Violet’s heart, stopping her words.

  “I want to know, sweetheart,” he said. “I want to know what we’re fighting.”

  What we’re fighting. As though she and Daniel were in this together.

  She’d never told anyone except the Parisian courtesan Lady Amber, and the woman had guessed most of it. Violet had trained herself so well not to speak of it that she couldn’t think in words, only in images, sounds, impressions of pain.

  Daniel caressed her shoulder. “Let me start. How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Oh, love.” Daniel brushed his lips to her hair. “Just a child.”

  “Girls marry at sixteen.”

  “Don’t justify it. Tell me. Who was he?”

  “Jacobi.” The word slipped out before she could stop it. She hadn’t meant to say it, because it wasn’t true, but then again, it was.

  “Jacobi,” Daniel said, steel in his voice. “And who is he?”

  “He didn’t . . .” Violet swallowed, tasting the whiskey bitter in her throat. “It wasn’t him. Jacobi taught me everything I know. I met him in Paris, when my mother was first starting to understand her clairvoyance. He recognized that I had a gift for figuring out what people wanted . . . what they needed. I was ten. He taught me all the tricks, how to give them a show, an experience they’d never forget. I wanted . . . I pretended . . . that he was my father.”

  “And he took advantage of that?”

  Violet chanced a glance up at him. Daniel’s eyes held a hardness she’d not seen in him before. His ancestors, she thought dimly, had been brutal barbarians, killing each other in bloodbaths for pieces of rocky land in the Scottish Highlands. Violet had done research on Daniel and the Mackenzies—they went back for centuries, to a man called Old Dan, who’d been granted the Scottish dukedom in the fourteenth century.

  That Daniel had likely carried a heavy claymore and been given the dukedom based on how many other men he’d cut to bits. Violet looked into Daniel’s eyes and saw that Highland barbarian looking out at her.

  “No,” Violet said. “That is . . .” The red-bearded man had been nothing like Jacobi. Jacobi had dark hair, brown eyes that could be kind, and pale white fingers that shook if he didn’t drink enough wine.

  “Then who? Give me a name.”

  “I never knew his name. Jacobi owed him money, a great deal of money, which he couldn’t pay. So when the man came to collect, and threatened Jacobi . . .” Violet swallowed, her throat tight.

  “Jacobi gave him you instead.” Daniel’s words were flat.

  Miserable, Violet nodded.

  Daniel made no move, not even drawing a sharp breath. His eyes in the growing firelight were dark golden—hard, harsh, glittering. “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  “I couldn’t believe what Jacobi had said. I thought it must be a mistake, that I misunderstood.” The words came now, loosened in the same way floodwaters loosened debris. “Jacobi left the room. He looked sad and angry, but he left.” The man with the red beard and eyes blue like faded sky had picked Violet up from the stool and shoved her against the wall. His breath had smelled like brandy. “He was strong, so strong. I tried to fight. I tried and tried. But he held me against the wall, and he . . . he . . . I was only a girl. It hurt so much.”

  The hurried, wooden monotone that spoke the words didn’t match the horror Violet the sixteen-year-old had felt. It didn’t convey her screams, her pleas for mercy, the hot pain that ripped through her when her innocence had been wrenched away.

  She’d limped home, torn and hurting, blood staining her skirt. Violet had locked herself in her bedchamber alone, claiming she had a fever. Violet’s mother, with her constant fear of illness, had stayed well away.

  “I thought I was going to die,” Violet said. “I remember being surprised when I lived.”

  Daniel’s arm tightened around her shoulders. When Violet looked up at him again, she was stunned to see his eyes moist.

  “What happened to Jacobi?” Daniel asked, his voice steady. “Is he still alive?”

  “I don’t think so. He’s never tried to find me, in any case, and I’ve kept an ear out—to make sure he doesn’t spring upon me. After all this time . . . I believe he’s dead.”

  “Ye left him? Good for you.”

  “No.” Violet swallowed, the next part coming slowly. “I forgave him.”

  “Lass . . .”

  She shook her head. “I was only sixteen. There was no one strong in my life—not my mother, and I had no father. Jacobi came to find me. He was filled with self-loathing. He begged for my understanding. He said the red-bearded man would have killed him had he not paid. I believed him. The man was mean and cold and carried a knife in his boot. I had tried to reach the knife when he . . . But I never could.” Jacobi had been so ashamed, filled with the need to make it up to Violet. And she’d let him.

  Daniel said nothing, only sat, his body warming hers as the fire slowly heated the room. This hideaway, with him, was safe, but Violet knew how easily safety could be destroyed.

  When Daniel spoke again, his voice was quiet. “I know why you forgave him. You wanted everything to go back to the way it was before, didn’t you?”

  He sounded as though he understood perfectly, as though he’d experienced the same need himself.

  “I did,” she said. “But it never could be the same, could it?”

  “No. It never can be.”

  Violet gave a mirthless laugh. “I forgave him,” she said. “I stayed with him. That is, until he tried it the second time.”

  “Dear God.”

  “Jacobi gambled too much. He was forever in debt. When he tried to use me to pay again, not six months later, I had enough of my wits about me to run. I was fast, and the man he owed was too rotund and slothful to catch me. I took my mother and Mary out of our rooms that very afternoon, and we left Paris. I never saw Jacobi again.”

  Daniel took her hand. He squeezed it between his, the strength of him immeasurable. “Lass, I am so sorry.”

  Violet let out her breath. “Nothing to be done.”

  Daniel released her, anger in his eyes. “Don’t sound so bloody resigned. What he did was monstrous. You trusted Jacobi, and he hurt you, in a way no father should hurt a daughter. In a way no man should hurt any woman.”

  “But he wasn’t really my father.” Violet’s heart bit with old pain. “That was my childhood fancy. Doesn’t mean he returned the sentiment.”

  “Don’t try to make this not his fault. It is nothing but his fault. I will find him so I can break his neck.”

  “I truly believe he’s dead. I want him to be. I never want to see him again.”

  Daniel remained in silent fury, and Violet leaned her head back on the windowpane, spent. The shutters were closed behind the window, keeping out the night and the wind, but the panes were cold.

  Dredging up the tale had hurt so much, like tearing scabs from closed wounds to let them bleed afresh. It had been twelve years since the red-bearded man had touched Violet, less than that since she’d run from Jacobi. And still the pain was there.

  Childish confusion had receded as adult understanding had come, but the anger, shock, and horror hadn’t died. Jacobi and his red-bearded creditor had killed young Violet that afternoon, making her disappear forever.

  “So that’s why you hit me so hard in London,” Daniel said. “I put you in mind of the bloke, which scared you senseless, and you struck out.”

  “Yes. I didn’t . . .”

  Daniel’s hand clamped down on hers. “Don’t tell me you didn’t mean to. You did mean to, every bit of it. I scared you, and you tried to defend yourself. Only natural. But I’m not sorry I tried to kiss you. That I’m going to do again, and again. And I’m used to women trying to kill me, so no worries there.”

  The cynical loo
k in his eyes broke through Violet’s haze of pain. She remembered what he’d said when he’d walked her home from the theatre—she remembered every word of every conversation they’d ever had.

  Everyone who hears my name knows my mother tried to off me with a knife when I was a tiny babe, before my dad threw me out of the way and stopped her.

  “I’m sorry,” Violet said. “About your mother, I mean.”

  Daniel shrugged. “I was a wee babe. Don’t even remember.”

  “But it hurts you.”

  Daniel let go of her hand, pushed himself from the window seat, and walked halfway across the cluttered room. “Are you asking for a look at my haunted childhood, since I made you tell me about yours?”

  Violet started to say no, but she knew that was exactly what she wanted. She’d shown her shivering vulnerability, and she wanted to see his. “Yes.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.” Daniel turned to face her, crossing his arms over the shirt she’d ripped open. The shirt was open to his waist now, his brown chest exposed, the tattoo bared, his kilt sagging on his hips. He was delectable, but the folded arms shut her out, shut everyone out.

  “Ye want me to tell you how I felt when I found out about my mum trying to kill me. Well, do ye know how I found out? My dad didn’t tell me. No. He never talked about it, though he was in the room that day, wrestling her down to take away the knife. I found out by whispers among the servants that my da killed my mum, and then the same whispers among the lads at school. And me not knowing what was the truth. The only person who knew for certain how my mother died was Dad, and he never told a soul, until he met up with Ainsley and gave her the tale.” Daniel balled his fists. “He wouldn’t even share it with his own son.”

  “I shouldn’t make you talk about it,” Violet said. But she wanted to know. She couldn’t lie to herself about that.

  “Yes, you should. I don’t blame Dad anymore. He was buried in his own troubles. My mum hurt him something awful, believe me. But knowing that the one person who is supposed to cherish you—your mother—hated you so much she wanted to kill you is a blow to a boy.”

  “Your father cares for you,” Violet said. “So does your stepmother. I saw that in them tonight.”

  “Oh, aye, they’re caring folk, they are. But it took me a long time to decide to give my trust to anyone, and maybe I haven’t done that yet. My dad did his best raising me, but he was busy chasing women, you see. Beautiful, expensive courtesans or beautiful, expensive married women—ladies he never had to let fully into his life.” His gaze went remote. “Most of them didn’t want to have anything to do with me—why should they? But some of them liked children, were hungry for kids of their own, poor lasses. They brought me little presents and played games with me, put up with my little-boy chatter. I’d start hoping my dad would marry one of the nice ones, so I’d have a mum like the other chaps at school. But as soon as I’d start thinking she’d stay, the lady would disappear. Dismissed by my dad, never to be seen again. When I was very small, I figured that meant the lady decided she hated me after all. Like my own mother had. As I grew older, I realized that my father simply didn’t want the woman around anymore. I got angry at him. Whenever I started to care for one of his women, he’d take her away from me. I said so to my dad, and that I’d never forgive him for it. He wasn’t impressed. Finally, I ceased bothering to care.”

  Daniel was a grown man now, hard-muscled, tall, formidable, with that hint of Old Dan Mackenzie in him. But Violet saw, behind that, a flash of the angry and confused little boy who’d learned to hide his hurt behind anger.

  “Your father married again, though,” Violet said.

  “Oh, aye. By the time he met Ainsley, I was old enough to understand that here was a woman who could make the poor old sod happy.” Daniel chuckled, the hurt little boy falling away. “To push Dad at her, I pretended I was in love with Ainsley myself. I told him I wanted to take her as my mistress. Trying to make him jealous, and me all of sixteen.” He laughed again, this time in true mirth. “Dad saw right through me, the wise old man. He finally let Ainsley land him, thank God. Took a weight off me mind, that did.”

  Violet smiled in spite of the tightness in her chest. “A happy ending.”

  “Aye, some people get them.”

  What about us? Will you have a happy ending, Daniel Mackenzie? Will I?

  He looked at her with eyes that held heat. Violet wanted him—yes, she did—but she felt open and naked, quivering and exposed.

  She clasped her hands together. “What do we do now?”

  “I don’t know, love. You’ve had a world of hurting, haven’t you? And so have I, and there’s no easy way for either of us to trust another person.”

  He had a way of putting things plainly. Violet wanted to trust, but the old darkness reached out and swatted any threat of softening away. Every single person in Violet’s life had betrayed her, except Mary and her mother. And Celine was so wrapped up in herself, her health, and the spirit world, that some days she barely noticed she had a daughter at all.

  Daniel turned abruptly and made for the door. Violet’s heart beat swiftly as he slid a bolt across the top of it and turned again to face her.

  “Well, there’s a couple of things we could do. We could go our separate ways, make a clean break, and get the hurting over with right away. Let it bleed, let it heal, never see each other again. Easy enough to do.”

  Violet’s heart squeezed with an ache and an emptiness she’d never felt before. “We could,” she said hollowly.

  “But you don’t want to, do you?” Daniel came to stand in front of her again, feet planted apart, arms folded over his open shirt. “I see it in your face. You want to try, to fight, and find out what happens.”

  “But I don’t know how.” Violet tightened her fingers. “I don’t know how to fight, not like this. It isn’t lifting tables, or releasing ectoplasm . . .”

  “It isn’t fooling people, no.” Daniel’s eyes were still. “It’s truth. It’s life.”

  “I don’t know anything about life. I only know how to run.”

  Daniel reached his tanned and callused hands out to her. “Then grab hold of me and hang on. We’re both scared about where this will end up, and when the hurting will come. If the hurting comes, it will be bad, I already know that. But hang on to me, and we’ll find out together, all right?”

  Chapter 17

  Daniel kept his hands out. He waited for Violet to rise and push past him, to run from him back to her boardinghouse, or all the way out of Marseille.

  His chest hurt with pain for her. If Jacobi was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long. He’d taken Violet, an amazing and precious woman, and destroyed her, not only in the eyes of the world, but inside herself. It was as though Jacobi had snatched up an exquisite and priceless marble by Michelangelo and smashed it to powder—worse, because Violet was a living, breathing woman. Alive, and in pain.

  Daniel would find not only Jacobi but the man who’d touched her and make him pay for every moment Violet had hurt. For every pain, every tear, every breath of panic.

  Violet looked up at Daniel for a long time, her blue eyes still but thoughts racing behind them. Her loose braid fell across the black canvas bodice, the breasts it hugged rising with her breath.

  Finally she lifted her hands, fingers visibly trembling, and placed them in his.

  Daniel closed his fingers over hers, feeling the cold of her skin, her fear. He pulled her to her feet. Violet’s hair was mussed, her eyes large, her dark face powder half brushed off to reveal patches of white skin.

  Daniel tugged her against him and closed his arms around her. He felt her trembling turn to all-out shaking as Violet clutched at the back of his shirt.

  Ideas for avenging her spun through Daniel’s thoughts, but he wouldn’t frighten Violet with them. There was a time for slaying dragons, and a time for holding on to someone and making the terror go away.

  Violet’s fear, it seemed, wouldn’t let her simp
ly hold on. She jerked his shirttails out from the back of his kilt and again pulled at his waistband.

  Daniel’s heart was beating as rapidly as hers, and he was hard for her—aching—but he caught her wrists and pulled her away from him. “I think I said this before. Let me savor you.”

  “I can’t.” Violet spoke breathily. “I need to burn through the fear. I want it done, before I know it’s happening . . .”

  She shook out of his grip and yanked once more at the kilt’s waistband. The pin that held the kilt in place broke open, and the plaid sagged from Daniel’s hips.

  As Daniel grabbed for the slipping kilt, Violet was shoving open his shirt, pushing it from his shoulders. She moved like a frightened animal, desperate and trembling.

  “No, lass.”

  “But you want me.” Violet sounded confused. She stroked down the front of the kilt, finding his hard cock and sending up a spike of madness. “You want me.”

  “Aye, that I do.” Daniel had to drop the kilt to seize her wrists. Violet fought, but Daniel was stronger. “I’m burning for you, lass. Have been for some time. But this isn’t what you need.”

  “Yes, it is. It is.”

  “No.” Daniel pulled her with him to the long, scrolled French sofa, currently covered with drawings. He shoved these to the floor and seated Violet on the couch. He’d missed one paper, and it crinkled under her skirts.

  Daniel knelt in front of her, still keeping his hands around her wrists. She stared at him in frantic bewilderment.

  “We’ll not be rushing through this,” he said. “No finishing before you realize what happened. No getting it over with.” Daniel brought her closed fists to his lips and kissed each in turn. “What you need is to learn slow goodness. How to enjoy each and every moment of it, how to embrace it to your heart and taste it. And I’m just the man to teach you.”

  He didn’t give her any time to think or react. Daniel kept hold of her hands as he moved up from his knees and sat next to her on the sofa. His loosened kilt spread across her colorful peasant skirts.