She spent a thoughtful moment considering his words. “What the hell does that mean?”
He laughed. “I don’t know. All I know is that I am glad that you’re here, and that I don’t want to end this night on a warped chord.”
“Is that anything like a sour note?”
“Smart ass,” he laughed softly.
“So how do you want to end this night?”
“I have Ben & Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch ice cream in the kitchen. It was specially ordered and shipped directly from Vermont. I believe it came over on the plane with you, from New England. Will that do?”
Miranda pinched back a smile. Bernie had truly given up all of her personal preferences. “You’re spoiling me, Mr. Fletcher.”
“That’s the idea, Miss Penney.” He walked her back to the castle, an easy peace made between them.
Chapter 4
On an afterthought, Miranda grabbed her jeans and sweater from where she’d carelessly tossed them over the back of a plush velvet and brass wing chair. She crossed the giant bedroom and opened the door to the dressing room, which alone was twice as big as her bedroom at home. She slipped her discarded clothing over a padded silk hanger. But for the simple garments she had put in the dressing room upon her arrival, the rest of the ivory hangers were empty.
After her walk on the beach and ice cream with Lucas, Miranda had returned to her room to see that her nightclothes had already been laid out for her. Candles had been lit and placed in ornate reflective sconces that cast an amber glow throughout the bedchamber. A fire crackled and popped in the hearth, adding its light and warmth to the room.
Miranda ran her hand over her flat belly and the pale, whispery pima cotton covering it. The short-sleeved, boat-necked top and its matching, wide-leg pants weren’t hers. The pajamas had come courtesy of the castle, and had arrived in a perfumed box with her name on it in fancy gold lettering. Back in Boston, she had hastily packed an overnight bag when she’d been driven home for her passport. She had thrown in her favorite nightshirt, a XXXL Baltimore Ravens T-shirt.
That shirt hung in the dressing room with the rest of her clothes.
The pajamas that the castle—Lucas—had provided were girly, but not obnoxiously so. They were something she might have actually chosen for herself. And they were a far cry from the rubber and spikes ensemble she would have expected a rock star to provide for his overnight lady guests. Given the chance to be treated like royalty, Miranda was slightly embarrassed by how easily she was adapting to it.
Of course, across the corridor, Bernie shamelessly took advantage of his host’s generosity. When Miranda had stopped by to say goodnight, a late-night “snack” of broiled scallops and lobster tails was being delivered to Bernie’s suite as he bid farewell to a team of masseuses. Bernie had chastised her for not making the most of her stay as he was, and he had accused her of deliberately not enjoying herself.
“But I am enjoying myself,” she admitted quietly. She went to the wall of giant windows and parted the drapes and sheers. The windows opened in, and she pulled them as wide as they would go. The breeze was cool, but not unpleasantly so, and she breathed deeply as it played in her hair. She had a postcard perfect view of the Irish Sea. The clean, salty scent of the water and its quiet song as it lapped at the shore infused her with a rare sense of tranquility. A long-suffering insomniac, she glanced at the magnificent bed. Pillows were stacked five deep at its head and the ivory coverings looked as soft as her pajamas felt. If all she got from the weekend was a good night’s sleep, she’d have no complaints when she faced Rex on Monday.
The thought of Rex and his minions, La and Dee, made her stiffen with tension and drove off any hope she had for a peaceful night’s sleep. Opposite the windows was a wall of bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. She usually spent her sleepless hours writing, but her laptop was at home in Boston. She gathered her hair and tied it into a loose knot as she scanned the titles on one of the shelves. She had decided on Wuthering Heights when a soft knock sounded on her door.
“What is it now, King Bernard?” she cracked as she opened it.
“As I said on the beach, I’d prefer Lucas.”
“I’m sorry.” She nervously gripped the doorknob in both hands. “I thought you were…never mind. Uh…I thought you had turned in for the night.”
He leaned against the wide doorframe. “I was passing by and saw your light under the door. I thought I’d check to see if you needed anything.”
“The suite actually has more than I need. It’s beautiful.” She self-consciously ran her fingers along her upper arm. Lucas’s eyes followed the movement. “Thank you for the pajamas. They’re very comfortable.”
“Indeed.” He lifted his eyes to hers.
“So you were just passing by?”
He nodded, unable to break his gaze from hers.
“Is your room close?”
“Oh, it’s right down the corridor. Down the stairs. Across the Great Hall. And…up two more flights of stairs, down another corridor and at the end of the North Tower.”
She grinned and took a slight step back. “So basically it’s in the same general latitude and longitude.”
“I’m something of a night owl. Most everyone else is asleep, except your friend Bernard. I believe he has half the waitstaff searching for chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream at this very moment. Are you sure you aren’t in need of anything?”
Miranda had the strongest feeling that Lucas Fletcher would do anything she asked of him at that moment. “I’m good.”
His smile faltered and his shoulders slumped a bit. “Then goodnight, fair Miranda.” He took a step from her door.
“Would you like to come in?” She blurted the invitation before she could second-guess herself.
“Yes,” Lucas said, perhaps too quickly. “Thank you.”
She stood to one side, allowing him to enter.
“I won’t stay too long,” Lucas told her. “I have a full day planned tomorrow, and I want you well rested.”
“If you’re a night owl, then I’m a bat.” She closed the door and led him deeper into the room. “I rarely fall asleep before dawn.”
Lucas followed her to a pair of loveseats that flanked the wide fireplace. She was about to sit on one of them when Lucas took her hand and steered her toward the bed. “Lie down.”
She took her hand back. “Say what?”
The left corner of his mouth rose in a mysterious, sexy smile. “Trust me, Miranda.” He went to the bed and turned down the duvet.
“Lucas…”
“Indulge me.” He began blowing out the candles.
It was late, well past midnight, and the moon’s pale glow softly illuminated the suite. The sheers floated on the breeze, allowing teasing glimpses of the starry sky.
“Miranda,” he prompted, his low, silky voice a melodic part of the night.
Well, she thought, I am tired. It wouldn’t hurt, to just lie down. He didn’t save my life only to lure me here and kill me. I hope.
She sat on the bed, and then stuck her legs beneath the covers. She almost purred in contentment when Lucas pulled the silk top sheet and goose-down duvet up to her shoulders. The bed had the right amount of firmness and the bed sheets whispered against her skin.
She was burying her cheek in a fluffy feather pillow when a weight eased beside her onto the bed. She turned her head to see Lucas. He rested on his left side, his hand supporting his head. “Turn on your side.” Miranda did so, to face him. Again, his enigmatic smile appeared, to further bend her will to his. “The other side.”
She rolled over, and as she did so, he lowered the covers. Her breath caught when he slid his hand beneath her top. She took slow, deep breaths in an attempt to still her racing heart as his hand warmed the cool skin between her shoulder-blades. Her skin goose-pimpled as his hand glided over the satiny expanse of her back.
“Why is this room called the Emberley Suite?” She hoped conversation would steer her min
d from wondering what Lucas’s touch would feel like on other parts of her body.
“This room has an interesting history, Miranda. Centuries ago, the mad daughter of Lord Sinclair Emberley leaped from those very windows.”
“That’s some bedtime story,” Miranda chuckled.
“It has a happy ending. The girl didn’t die. Some say a straw cart broke her fall, and she was carried off and found by the very man she had previously refused to marry. He nursed her injuries, they fell in love, and they lived happily ever after in the south of Wales.”
“What do others say?”
“That she wasn’t mad at all, that she feigned madness so that she would be rejected by the man her father had arranged for her to marry.”
“Who was her intended?”
“One of two Moorish princes who traveled to Great Britain from Southern India. His name was Laith al Kadin, and he was knighted by King Henry V for helping the English fight the French, who called him Le Bête Noir de Brind’Amor.”
The Black Beast of Brind’Amor, Miranda translated in her head.
“He was a fierce fighter who, legend has it, led his army in a slaughter of a French village in one of the many skirmishes between the French and English,” Lucas went on. “Laith’s nickname may have been undeserved, as his twin brother Akil was more likely to have murdered innocent women and children.”
“Typical media, muddying up the facts,” Miranda said in a sleepy mumble.
Lucas’s movements were gentle and carefully measured, his hand never breaking its light contact with her skin as it covered every square inch between her neck and waist. A moan welled in her throat, but she held it in. He touched her back, and only her back, yet his touch resonated through her entire body. She rolled onto her stomach and tugged at the back of her shirt, pulling it over her head then dropping it to the floor. Hugging her pillow, she allowed him unrestricted access to her bare back.
A noiseless whistle seeped from Lucas’s puckered lips and his hand trembled as it hummed over her skin. He moved closer, sharing her pillow as he rested his head in the crook of his left arm. His fingers brushed the hair at her nape and her toes curled in response. When his fingertips trailed along her sides, barely grazing the outer curve of her right breast, she stifled a sigh in her pillow.
She had never known that her back was so sensitive, that a man could start her blood simmering through hypnotic touch alone. Thoroughly contented, she concentrated only on the sensation of his hand on her back and the warmth of his body as it molded itself to hers through the bedclothes. She turned her head to face him.
He found himself again wallowing in the beauty of her sleepy eyes. Her eyelids opened and closed slowly, as she fought to stay awake. “Sleep, Miranda.” His voice was as comforting to her ears as his hand was to her back.
A lazy smile graced her lips as her eyes drowsed shut. He nestled closer, tucking her head beneath his chin, his touch the lullaby guiding her into a world of safe and beautiful dreams.
* * *
“I feel like an invalid.” Miranda stared at the full breakfast tray that had been placed over her knees. A full pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice captured the sunlight. Steam curled lyrically from a miniature thermal pot of fragrant coffee. She lifted the silver dome from a large plate to see a generous arrangement of plump sausages, broiled tomato halves, fried potatoes, two sunny-side up eggs, three thick strips of bacon, and four triangles of medium-dark toast. Little pots of butter, strawberry preserves, orange marmalade, sugar and cream and a bouquet of yellow daisies decorated the tray.
This was a radical change from Miranda’s typical breakfast, a handful of heart-friendly Cheerios eaten directly from the three-month-old box in her desk drawer at the Herald-Star.
She was pouring herself a cup of coffee when Bernie, rivaling the sunrise in a quilted gold satin robe, burst into the room and took a running leap at her. She lifted the tray off the bed a split second before Bernie belly-flopped onto it. “Tell, tell, Andy-Baby!” he cried gleefully.
“Tell what?” She repositioned her tray and speared a sausage with her fork.
“Easy there, sugar.” Bernie empathized with the defenseless sausage. “And you know what what. I saw his Royal Rockness leaving your chambre à coucher this morning.”
“Why are you speaking French?”
“That was French?”
“Lucas tucked me in last night.” She took a big bite of sausage and chased it with a healthy swig of coffee.
“You look like a princess,” Bernie said, “of a Mexican mining camp. Slow down, Clementina, that sausage isn’t going anywhere.”
“This is really good.” Miranda made an effort to chew before she swallowed. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
Bernie rolled onto his back and rested his head on her knees. “Worked up an appetite last night, huh? You had sex, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Red hot monkey sex, right?”
“No.”
“You’d tell me if you did, wouldn’t you?”
“No.”
“Yes, you would.”
“Not this time. You’re a reporter on this trip, not my best friend. You’re the enemy.”
“Anything you say in this room is off the record,” Bernie offered. “How’s that?”
“Okay. That’s fair.”
“So did he make a man out of you?”
“We talked. He told me a bedtime story. And I fell asleep.” She paused. “I had a really good sleep.”
“Well, I saw your man leaving not more than twenty minutes ago.”
Miranda set down her cutlery. “Shut up,” she said, disbelieving him. “Honestly?”
Bernie laced his fingers over his belly. “Lucas looked like he’d had a pretty good night. He had that man glow.”
“What the hell is that?’”
“It’s that look a man gets when he knows what—or who, in this case—he wants.” Bernie sat cross-legged, facing Miranda. “Whether it’s a new power tool or a car or a person, men get a shine on when they really want something. That man wants you so much, I’ll bet he glows in the dark.”
“He didn’t do anything to give me any indication that he wanted anything other than…friendship.” She swirled a toast point in the yolk of an egg.
“Well, your friend looked awfully satisfied this morning.” Bernie snagged a piece of toast. He took Miranda’s knife from her hand so he could help himself to the strawberry preserves.
“Haven’t you eaten?” she asked.
“Twice.” He nibbled the crust of his toast. “Once in my room and once down with the kitchen staff. Those kids sure know how to have a good time, even at six in the morning. They served Bubble and Squeak. It’s a skillet breakfast made from cabbage, bacon, ham, onions and last night’s potatoes, but if I ever write my autobiography, that’s what I’ll call it.”
“Did you go to bed at all last night?” Miranda ate her two remaining slices of bacon at once, to save Bernie the trouble of stealing them from her.
“Of course, but a good reporter gets up when the story does. I was coming back from the Banquet Hall this morning when Lucas left your room.”
“Lucas has a full day planned for us.” Miranda set her tray aside and climbed out of the bed. “I’m going to shower and dress.”
“Come and get me when you’re done, hon.” He scurried off the bed after taking another piece of toast and a sausage. “I’ll be in my rooms, recording my speculations about what went on in here last night.”
Miranda nodded, preoccupied with her own thoughts as Bernie left. So Lucas had stayed the night. She didn’t quite know what to make of that. The eight o’clock delivery of the breakfast tray had awakened her from a very pleasant, very sound sleep. She had remembered to put her top back on before inviting the butler in, but she almost hadn’t remembered that Lucas had ever been there in bed beside her. She recalled his presence and his touch as one would recall a very happy, very pleasant dream. The
kind of dream you tried to recapture every night thereafter, no matter how futile the pursuit. But by their very nature, dreams weren’t meant to be reclaimed, or real.
Miranda tried to force herself to remember that very important point: that this whole experience with Lucas wasn’t real, no matter how genuine it all felt. She paced the bedroom, telling herself that this weekend at Conwy would ultimately be no more than a modest sentence or two in the rich history of the Emberley Suite, and a nice memory for her to muse on when she was old and gray and covering cribbage tournaments for her convalescent home newsletter.
She went into the dressing room and grabbed a pair of jeans and a black V-neck sweater. She carried them into the bathroom and hung them over the clothes post. The shower distracted her from thoughts of Lucas. The thing was amazing. One of its walls was one-way glass and faced the ocean, giving the bather the impression of washing right there in Conwy Bay. There were four adjustable showerheads, each positioned at a different height. “Perfect for parties,” Miranda chuckled.
She started the water and undressed. As she stepped into the spray, a devilish notion crept into her head. She wondered what it would be like to bathe in the ocean with Lucas’s warm hands traveling over her skin…
* * *
Lucas blasted the cold water in all six heads of his shower. He was tempted to start running laps through them, hoping the brisk water would finally cool the heat that had been raging in him since he’d awakened in Miranda’s bed. Bracing his hands on the slate tiles, he let the cold water batter him. He hadn’t meant to stay the night in her room, and certainly not in her bed. He hadn’t even meant to fall asleep. He’d closed his eyes just for a moment, to better focus his attention on the satiny texture of her skin, and the next thing he’d known, he was waking up with the bright sun in his eyes and Miranda’s warm backside against his groin.
Not that he had minded. He could have stayed that way until Christmas, but the longer he stayed the bigger a liar he would have appeared to be. He had given her his word that he she would be safe from untoward advances, so he’d eased away from her, careful not to awaken her. But she had rolled over onto her back, partially into the space he had vacated.
Crush Page 7
