Ethan let out a mocking laugh. “Well, that would undoubtedly be a first.”
“It’s none of your damn business what happened,” Derek growled. “Now get out of the way before I knock your ass to the ground.”
“Tsk, brother. Is that any way to speak in front of a lady? Besides, if I recall our last little brawl, I bloodied your face quite nicely.”
“You punched me when I wasn’t looking, you weasel. Now stand aside.”
Ethan straightened abruptly, and Rosalyn feared the men would come to blows. “Oh!” she said with a moan, laying a hand across her stomach, hoping her act worked.
Derek immediately turned to her. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”
“I’m feeling dizzy. Might I lie down?”
“Certainly.”
Derek brushed by Ethan. Rosalyn had a quick view of the beauty of the foyer, with its high-domed ceiling and magnificent Flemish tapestries on the walls.
From the front doorway, Ethan called, “Well done, my lady. But perhaps next time you should cradle your head if you feel dizzy. My darling brother is too enamored to notice, but I say bravo.” He winked and disappeared out the door.
“Cretin,” Derek muttered as he carried her down a long corridor where swords and battle-axes and battered old shields held evidence of darker years.
At the end of the hallway, Rosalyn spotted a doorway opened a crack. Derek stopped in front of it and shoved it open with his foot.
A startled gasp sounded from the corner of the room. When Derek entered, Rosalyn saw a lovely young woman.
Her hair was dark as midnight and spilled in soft waves to the middle of her back. The sleek tresses were held in place by a simple blue ribbon that matched her dress, which was worn in spots yet still flattered her figure.
“My lord,” the woman said, holding a rag in one hand. “I had not heard you had returned. Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Caroline. May I introduce you to Lady Rosalyn, who will be staying with us for a while. I hope you’ll make her feel at home.”
“Ofcourse, m’ lord.” Yet when the woman’s gaze settled on her, Rosalyn felt as though her presence was not wanted. “Welcome tae Castle Gray, my lady,” she murmured, sketching a curtsey. “I hope ye enjoy y’r stay with us.”
“Thank you, I’m sure I will.”
Returning her attention to Derek, Caroline said, “I was just airing out her ladyship’s room. Will there be anything else y’ll be needin’?”
“A bath,” Derek replied. “Lady Rosalyn has had a long trip. I’ll also need Cyril to fetch Dr. Latham; our guest has taken a fall.”
Cool amber eyes flicked to Rosalyn. “Y’ve been hurt, ma’am?”
“Hardly.” Looking up at Derek, Rosalyn said, “I don’t need a doctor.”
“I’ll let Latham decide. For now, let’s get you into bed.” Rosalyn could feel Caroline’s eyes on her as Derek lifted the coverlet and slid her beneath it.
“This is unnecessary,” she told him, uncomfortable with his coddling. “I’m fine now.” Her protest went unheeded as Derek tucked her in.
Turning to Caroline, he said, “I want you to make sure she stays in bed until her bath arrives.” He headed for the door. On the threshold he ordered, “Do not move from that spot. I’ll be back to check on you.”
Then he was gone.
Eight
A deafening silence descended as the door clicked shut.
Rosalyn shifted against the mound of pillows Derek had arranged behind her back and tried to think of something to say to his housekeeper.
She suspected that Caroline kept more than just Derek’s house; she had seen that possessive light in a woman’s eyes before. She knew the signs of love.
If Derek was having an affair with the woman, Rosalyn could only imagine how her presence made Caroline feel. She sought to reassure her, but wasn’t certain she could. After all, whether she liked it or not, she was attracted to him herself.
“Y’re English,” the woman said bluntly, whether recrimination or simple observation Rosalyn could not discern.
“Yes, but I consider Cornwall my home.”
“There isn’t a place on the earth quite like Scotland,” Caroline stated with pride.
“I’m beginning to agree with you.”
Rosalyn hadn’t forgotten her vow to leave tonight after everyone was in bed. She could only hope to get a good start on Derek. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe he wouldn’t come after her.
She had to get well out of the vicinity so that he would abandon his pursuit. She would leave him a note explaining what had prompted her departure.
Even as she sat there, Calder could very well be stalking Castle Gray’s perimeter. Derek might believe his fortress secure, but Calder was wily. He would find a chink somewhere and slip in undetected. Rosalyn shivered.
“Are ye feelin’ unwell, miss?”
“No,” she lied. “Just eager to get up. Will you tell on me if I do?”
Her coconspirator nibbled her lip. “I suppose ’twill be all right. But his lordship does get mightily put out when his orders aren’t obeyed.”
Rosalyn smiled and tossed back the bedcovers. “I won’t tell if you don’t.” She rose tentatively, testing her weight on her legs. Though one of her ankles felt a bit swollen and sore, and her back ached somewhat, she felt well overall. She took a few steps and stopped by the bedpost to admire a picture on the wall. “Who’s that?”
“Oh, that’s his lordship’s mother, Lady Emmaline. She died a few months back.” The housekeeper sighed and shook her head. “Tragic.”
Rosalyn turned to her. “Why?”
Caroline hesitated, plucking at her skirt. “I imagine I shouldn’t be sayin’ anything…”
Rosalyn’s curiosity was piqued. She hadn’t been able to obtain any information about Derek except for what he himself had told her. People seemed to know very little about him and his life.
“Please say what you want,” Rosalyn urged the young woman. “We are bound by a vow of silence, remember? Anything said here stays here.”
“Aye, we are bound.” She moved closer, peeking quickly at the door. Rosalyn followed her gaze, finding the secrecy all very dramatic.
The telling of tales seemed to abound in Derek’s home. First Nathaniel, now Caroline. Castle Gray appeared a gossip’s haven—not that Rosalyn had ever been a gossipmonger, but she burned to know more about Derek.
Perhaps he would prefer to tell her about his life himself rather than having it bandied about by servants? But while Rosalyn debated with her conscience, the opportunity to halt Caroline came and went.
“Well,” the woman began in a lowered voice, leaning close, “perhaps tragic weren’t the word I was lookin’ for. Sad is perhaps more right. Two people never seemed more in love as the laird’s mother and father, but never were two more wrong for one another.”
“Why?”
“The old laird’s father—Derek’s grandfather—didn’t want his son tae marry an Englishwoman. He had been around long enough tae remember the queen’s oppression of the Scots. But the old laird, he was determined. He wanted the fair-haired English lass with her dainty ways and fancy dressin’. Guess he thought havin’ her on his arm would make him more acceptable tae those high and mighty English folk with their noses up in the air. But it never did.”
She shook her head sadly. “’Twas a shame tae see the missus so down about it. Those very same snooty folk shunned her, too, after she married a lowly Scotsman, no matter that he was laird. A heathen was a heathen, they said.”
That was the label Derek had used, and the more Rosalyn heard it, the more she disliked it. As refined as Derek was, it was hard to believe that there were people who considered his blood tainted. He seemed far more a gentleman than many of the Englishmen she had met in London.
Even so, it was clear that he enjoyed more acceptance than his father did. Times had changed, though not as much as Rosalyn had thought.
“So what be
came of the relationship between Derek’s parents?” Rosalyn asked.
Caroline sighed. “’Twas no surprise that it faltered and eventually broke apart. It didn’t help when Master Ethan showed up on the doorstep, claimin’ tae be the old laird’s bastard, and there bein’ those affirmin’ it. That was the last straw for Lady Emmaline. Me, I was never quite sure. His lordship’s father had himself a wanderin’ eye, but he seemed tae love his wife. At least until she left him tae go back tae England.
“How his pride was torn,” Caroline went on dramatically. “He vowed he’d never go after her, and he never did. But he wasn’t the same after she left. It was strange, y’ know? There had been many silences between the old laird and his lady, but when she was gone the silence was…” She frowned, searching for the word.
“Deafening?” Rosalyn supplied, understanding the depth of such silence after her mother died.
Caroline nodded. “Aye. I’ve never known the like. Poor Derek.” A flush heated her cheeks as she flashed a quick glance at Rosalyn and hasten to correct, “I mean, his lordship. He got the brunt of the earl’s sour disposition. The man looked at his son as though everything was his fault. Right in front of the lad, he would treat Master Ethan so much better, even though he hated that boy with a passion. It were the damnedest thing. One was the true heir and the other a bastard, but the roles seemed reversed. Do ye know what I mean?”
“Yes,” Rosalyn murmured. “I do.” She could see it all so clearly, and she better understood the depths of anger and bitterness between the brothers.
“Well, that’s why Lord Derek won’t marry himself an Englishwoman. Too many bad memories associated with his father’s doomed marriage.”
The housekeeper’s revelation took Rosalyn a moment to digest. She noted the calculated look in the woman’s eyes, as though everything she had imparted was meant to tell Rosalyn that Derek would never be interested in her due to her English roots.
“I see,” Rosalyn said thoughtfully.
“As do I,” a deep voice intoned, bringing Rosalyn whirling around to find Derek framed in the doorway, Darius standing a few feet behind him with one of her trunks. Derek stepped into the room, his gaze never wavering from hers as he said, “I hope this little tête-à-tête has been edifying for the both of you.”
Rosalyn felt ashamed; it wasn’t right to talk about him beneath his very roof. He stopped her apology with a raised hand.
“See to your duties, Caroline,” he said gruffly, scowling as she hurried past him into the hallway. Returning his attention to Rosalyn, he said, “Where would you like your trunks?”
Rosalyn pointed to the far corner. “There is fine. Thank you.”
Darius entered with one trunk, Nathaniel lugging the other. The boy regarded her with worried brown eyes; he clearly thought she was in dire trouble.
Darius shook his head but left without uttering a single word. Nathaniel lingered, obviously disinclined to leave. “Should I be fetchin’ anything for the lady, sir?” he asked Derek, who had yet to redirect his penetrating stare from her.
“No. That will be all.”
“But what about the miss’s bath?”
As though on cue, the copper tub arrived, followed by several servants carrying steaming buckets of hot water, then several more carrying pails of cold, until the tub was filled to capacity and looked ever so inviting. All she wanted to do was soak for an hour; her limbs were beginning to ache.
But Rosalyn doubted she would be given much time to enjoy the bath; it appeared she was in for a lecture.
“Perhaps the miss would like some food?” Nathaniel persisted, looking hopefully at Derek.
“Nothing is going to happen to Lady Rosalyn, lad, so you needn’t worry.”
“Oh, I wasn’t worryin’, sir,” Nathaniel said in a rush, dismissing the possibility that he wasn’t absolutely confident of his hero’s intentions. “I know ye’d never hurt a fly and that ye just like tae look mean when y’re really not.”
Derek cocked a brow. “I’m not?”
Rosalyn saw the hint of a smile as Derek folded his arms across his chest. A rather impressive chest, as she had noticed far too often for her peace of mind.
“Naw,” Nathaniel replied. “Ye just like tae huff a lot.”
Rosalyn put a hand over her mouth to cover her laugh.
“Ye’d never hurt no one—not unless ye had tae. But ye’d never harm a lady, ’specially one as pretty as the missus.” To Rosalyn, the young boy said, “He thinks y’re pretty, miss. He looks at ye all funny, like how Janie looks at me.” He grimaced at the reminder of his unwanted sweetheart.
“You’re a fine man, Nathaniel,” Rosalyn told him. “Someday you’ll make some lucky girl very happy.”
He tilted his head questioningly. “How am I going tae make her happy?”
“Never mind,” Derek answered, taking hold of the boy’s thin shoulders and turning him toward the door. “Now out with you. You’ve said enough for one day.”
“All right, I’ll go. But if ye need me, miss, I’ll be in the stables.” He started toward the door and then turned halfway around. “I just thought the lady should know that ye don’t bite, is all. She looks kinda worried and I don’t think that’s right, what with her bein’ injured and all. Do you think that’s right, sir?”
“Point taken,” Derek conceded. “The lady will be pampered until she’s well again. Does that ease your mind?”
Nathaniel beamed. “Aye, sir.” Shifting his gaze to Rosalyn, he said, “Bye, miss. Y’ll be fine now. His lordship always keeps his word.” With that pronouncement, he skipped off—and Rosalyn found herself alone with Derek.
He reached back and pushed the door closed, making Rosalyn very much aware of an expanding ache within her that fanned to life every time she was with Derek.
Her mind whirred with her hidden fantasies, imagining Derek taking her down onto the bed, stripping her bare and wetting her skin with his lips and tongue, bringing her to the brink before he slid up and entered her without a word.
“I think young Nathaniel is smitten with you,” Derek said, bringing her back to the present as he took a few leisurely steps toward the tub, where steam evaporated into the air.
Rosalyn struggled for breath. “He’s a sweet boy.”
Derek nodded, running the tips of his fingers across the surface of the water, making Rosalyn wish it was her skin instead. “You do have a way of affecting males of all ages.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
“You don’t, do you?” He slowly moved toward her, a sensual rhythm in each step, leaving Rosalyn feeling trapped as he came to a stop in front of her. “If you’d like to know anything about me, all you have to do is ask. If I feel it’s something you should know, then I’ll give you my best answer.”
His nearness was unnerving, and Rosalyn sought a breath to quiet her pounding pulse. “I wasn’t prying. It was just that I noticed the painting.” She pointed to it, needing a diversion. “Your mother was very lovely.”
Derek regarded the portrait. “Yes, she prided herself on her appearance. I remember when she sat for the artist. My father had just given her that necklace.”
Rosalyn had noted the magnificent emerald and diamond necklace dangling in the hollow of his mother’s throat. “It’s beautiful.”
“A family heirloom. My mother insisted she be buried in it. It was more a symbol of triumph than a treasured item of jewelry. It was the final peace offering my father endeavored to make with my mother. Unfortunately, it was shortly before Ethan arrived. That’s an entirely different sordid tale, though I suspect you’ve gotten an earful.”
“I heard some of the story, but I’d rather hear it from you.”
He absently swept a lock of hair off her shoulder. “That, my dear, is a long and boring tale, best left for old age. Right now, your bath is growing cold. Do you need any help undressing?”
That was the second time he had asked, and if he asked a third time, she very well might give in
to temptation. “No, I’m sure I can manage.”
“So I assume the buttons at the back of your gown open on command, then?”
Rosalyn had figured she could undo some and pull the dress over her head. Though she would have preferred his assistance, having him so close and feeling his fingers skimming her skin would be more than she could bear.
“Perhaps you could send a maid?”
“Certainly,” he returned. “But I’m here now, and I have two hands. You’ll find that we don’t stand much on formality around here. So if you trust me to undo a few buttons with the promise that I’m harboring no ulterior motives, I’d be more than willing to help.”
Rosalyn knew when she was cornered. If she said no, it would appear as though she didn’t trust him, when it was herself she didn’t trust. “I would be grateful for your assistance.”
Rosalyn closed her eyes as Derek leisurely undid one button after the next, a shiver running through her body as his fingers lightly grazed her skin, each whispering caress feeling deliberate rather than accidental.
She barely noticed when the sleeves of her dress slipped off her shoulders, or when Derek’s hands stopped moving and settled on her waist to turn her around.
His voice was a dark whisper as he said, “You’re free.”
“Thank you,” she murmured, gazing in the deep blue eyes studying her so intensely.
“You’re welcome.” He glanced down at her lips, and Rosalyn felt them tingle in anticipation. “Perhaps I should stay and make sure you don’t have any trouble getting in and out of the tub? I promise to keep my eyes closed.”
She would have preferred he join her in the warm, silky water and the thought danced through her head of whispering an indecent invitation. He would respond with a low growl of anticipation as he quickly divested himself of his clothes and lifted her into his arms and into the water. He would turn her toward him and oh-so-expertly guide her onto his shaft, easing her down by her hips and slowly back up.
The Highlander's Stolen Bride Page 8
