“Business is all I know.”
He chuckled lightly. “It didn’t feel that way when I kissed you last night.”
It was time for a good explanation. She couldn’t actually let him think that she’d enjoyed the kiss. “I’d had too much whisky.”
He took a half step closer and tilted her face just a little higher. “Have you had any whisky today?”
Half hypnotized by his eyes and his Sean Connery voice, she shook her head.
“Good.” A slight smile lifted the corners of his lips. “We’ll try the kiss again.”
Even if she’d wanted to, he didn’t give her time to object. His mouth was on hers in an instant, and contrary to what she thought she’d do, she didn’t fight. She simply enjoyed. Immensely.
Soft. Oh, so soft. She put a hand on his chest and felt his heart beating through his cashmere sweater. Felt her own heart quivering while the butterflies in her stomach began to kick up their wings. He felt good—wonderful— and it would be so easy to fall into his embrace, but she’d let that happen once before in her life. Let a man steal her heart, her dreams, her hopes, and then her ideas.
She would not fall so easily again.
With her hand still against his rapidly beating heart, she gave a gentle push and stepped back, giving herself room to breathe, to think straight.
“Did you ask me here to proposition me, or because you have a proposition to discuss?”
“Because you intrigue me. A lot of women have bored me lately. You don’t.”
“So I’m to be your evening’s entertainment?”
“I thought we could entertain each other. I show you the arched hallway you expressed an interest in during the tour, and then we retire to the game room for a little fan.”
The eight-foot leather sofa in front of the fireplace instantly sprang to mind. Was that the kind of fun he was thinking of? “What did you want to do? Play chess? Billiards? Gin rummy?” She had tried to sound professional, but she had the horrid feeling a touch of seductive temptress accented her words.
“Poker.”
“One of my best games.” Thankfully! “I have four brothers, and they never could figure out when I was bluffing.”
“It’ll be interesting to see how straight a face you can keep while we play.”
“I’m very good at hiding emotions.”
He smiled slyly. “Good. We’ll have another battle of wills. That’s one of the things I like so much about you.”
At least she knew he liked her. Maybe he liked her enough to talk business.
“Now that we have the entertainment part of our evening planned, could we discuss your proposition?”
He tugged her hand through his arm again. “After dinner. As I said, pretend I’m not someone you want to do business with… at least for an hour or two.”
It sounded like a fair enough plan. “All right.”
Candles flickered in the great dining room, their glow bouncing off the crystal, china, and elegant silver. The fragrance of hundreds of roses engulfed her, and so did their blossoms, which sprang from nearly a dozen bouquets.
Ever the gentleman, Colin held her chair, then scooted it in once she sat down. At any moment now she expected a butler or two in elegant black livery to step out from behind the doors, but the only person who moved in the room was Colin as he walked to the far end of the table and took his place.
“Very intimate,” she teased as she looked down the banquet table. “How many other people could you seat here?”
“Twenty on one side, twenty on the other. But tonight I made sure the table was smaller than usual, just for you.”
“Thank you.” A silver-domed plate sat before her, and she couldn’t help but wonder what she’d find underneath. “Is this meant to be a surprise?”
“Only dinner,” he said, a touch of mirth tilting his lips.
Hmm. She lifted the dome cautiously, wondering if the man were a tease and something would fly out to startle her. Doves, maybe. Or butterflies. Instead, something brown and terribly ugly sat on the plate before her. She frowned in confusion.
“You’ve never had haggis?”
“I can’t say that I have.” Or ever want to, she added to herself.
“It’s spiced sheep innards and oatmeal. I’m sure you recognize the neeps and potatoes.”
“Neeps?”
“Turnips.” He laughed. “I thought you might enjoy a wee bit of Scotland.”
“Then why didn’t you wear a kilt?” The silly words flew right out of her mouth.
“I didn’t want to alarm you with my hairy legs.”
She raised an amused and very interested brow. “Are they that hairy?”
“That’s something I’ll let you wonder about.”
Along with all the other images swimming around her head of Colin wearing a kilt.
“Go on.” He lifted his knife and fork and posed them near the haggis. “Try it.”
It wasn’t bad, she decided after she popped the first infinitesimal morsel into her mouth. She wouldn’t want a steady diet of spiced sheep innards and oatmeal, and the neeps weren’t seasoned quite the way she would have prepared them, but all in all, she’d had far worse in other countries.
“Does your cook prepare haggis for you often?” she asked, slicing off another bite.
“Steak’s more to my liking. Medium rare, with mushrooms and wine sauce. As for my cook, I’m without one at the moment.” He chewed slowly, and she watched his mouth at work. A nice mouth. Sensual. Seductive. He’d taste quite good with wine, she imagined.
Her gaze flew back to the contents of her plate before her mind could pursue the image she’d conjured of his nude body drizzled with chocolate and raspberry sauce.
“Who made the haggis if you don’t have a cook?”
“Meg made the haggis, and Billy—you may have met him at the Devil’s Cup—brought it by shortly before you arrived.”
“What happened to your cook?” she asked, making polite conversation.
“They don’t stay long.” He laughed devilishly. “There’s something about the castle that frightens them away.”
Her gaze flickered toward him, and she grinned. “You, perhaps?”
“I’ve been known to frighten a few people.” His eyes seemed to smolder as he looked down the table at her. “Do I frighten you?”
She shook her head. “You intrigue me.”
“Good. I’m a firm believer that all relationships should start with a little intrigue.”
“I heard rumors in the pub that your relationships rarely last more than a day or two.”
“Blatant lust withers quickly. Throw in a wee bit of mystery, and the desire is prolonged.”
Prolonged desire sounded nice. Perhaps she could create a dessert with a lingering taste and dub it with that title. Maybe she’d feed it to Colin bit by bit.
A rush of heat blazed up her neck and into her cheeks at the thought. What on earth was going on in her mind? Was it this castle? The village? Colin? Surely they’d bewitched her; the last thing she ever did was picture herself in any of her sinful creations.
Somewhat embarrassed by her thoughts, she lifted her gaze to the far end of the table. Colin sat there, his fingers steepled in front of his face, and watched her.
“Is it too warm in here for you?” he asked.
“It’s fine. Thank you.”
He pushed himself up from the table, went to a side bar, and poured two tumblers full of whisky. How he could drink so much of the stuff and not get drunk amazed her, but he always seemed in control. Too much so.
“Come,” he said, holding the glass out to her as she stood. “I’ll show you the arched hallway now.”
She took a sip of the whisky and felt the warmth drip through her until it reached her toes; then she took hold of his extended arm, and the warm drip was replaced by a flood of bubbling lava. The man was too hot, but she wasn’t about to let go.
He led her through the armory, where bayonet blades an
d flintlock pistols hung on the walls beside decorative dirks, ancient claymores, and war-weary battle-axes. “My ancestors were merchants, not warriors,” he told her. “Most of what you see here was collected by them from the battlegrounds long after the fighting ended. It’s not an honorable tale, but it’s true.”
“Does it disturb you?”
“It’s history.”
But it seemed to bother him. It wasn’t the first time she’d noticed him tense when he mentioned his family’s past.
At last they stopped at one end of a long and wide, cold and stark hallway. “This is it. The hall of arches.”
A slight shiver raced through her, and she could clearly see why the place was infamous, why tourists were only brought here on Halloween. A series of granite arches that must have been ten feet wide and fifteen feet high ran down each side, and shockingly, at least three-fourths of the arches appeared to have been sealed with a variety of different stones.
“The first part of the castle, where the great hall is, was built in the thirteenth century. This hallway, which connects the main castle with the coach house and stables, dates from the sixteenth.” He took a sip of his whisky as they walked slowly down the hall. “Each archway bears a brass plaque to honor a Dunbar wife. They’re all here—every wife after Alexander’s.”
“Is it true that they were buried—alive—behind the walls?”
Colin laughed, the sound echoing off the stone walls. “I could find out easily enough if I knocked down the archway walls, but the mystery is far more appealing than learning the truth.”
He moved a little farther down the hall, taking another swallow of whisky as he stopped beside the last walled-in arch, its plaque engraved ELIZABETH DUNBAR—1978. “This one belongs to my mother.”
Emily couldn’t miss the flash of pain across his face “Your mother?”
“Aye.” He laughed cynically. “She disappeared when I was two, taking with her far more wealth than she had when she married my father—at least that’s the story I was told when I was old enough to understand. I’ve not seen or heard from her since. As far as I know, my father could have walled her up inside this arch.”
“You don’t believe that happened, do you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe ninety percent of the tales that abound around here. For the most part they’re stories that have grown out of proportion over hundreds of years of telling and retelling. I’m sure some of the murders are true, and probably most of the affairs. One thing I do know, Dunbars don’t have a good record for happily-ever-after marriages.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. The stories breed curiosity, and curiosity has equaled money for our family.” Somehow, without her even knowing it, his fingers had entwined with hers, and he squeezed them tightly now. “What about your family? Any scandal?”
“No divorces. No murders. Just a bunch of good old Californians who ate dinner together every night and went to church together on Sunday. The most scandalous tale I’ve heard told in years had to do with a panty raid my brother got caught in at college.”
“I did something similar.” He laughed, a faraway look in his eyes. “Except no one got caught, and the girls had to come to my room to collect their things.”
“Did you exact a price from them before you gave back the panties?”
“A kiss. But just a small one.”
They walked a little farther, and she sipped her whisky, thinking that he sounded like a man who’d like a regular life for a change, or maybe a combination of what he’d always had and what she’d always known. There may have been passion in his family, but apparently there’d been no love.
“This one,” Colin said, stopping in front of an arch that hadn’t been walled in, ‘*is for my wife.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
“No. If I don’t fill this in, eventually, I’ll break a longstanding tradition.”
“You wouldn’t break tradition, would you?”
“If the villagers have their way, no. If I have my own way, yes.”
“Mind explaining that to me?”
“The villagers have a habit of sending women my way. They even wager on my love life.”
“Oh, yes, I know all about that.”
He chuckled. “I suppose I can’t blame them. They feel their entire existence will crumble if I don’t marry and produce an heir, someone I can hand the recipe for Dunbar whisky ta”
“But what about your wife?”
“I’d definitely have to do away with her to keep the tradition alive. Meg, Billy, the whole lot of them, have presented me with a list of ways to get rid of her—all in jest, of course.”
“And what do you tell them?”
He shrugged. “I’ve told them I don’t plan to marry. The tradition ends with me.”
“Is that what you really want?”
He angled his head toward her, sadness and a touch of mirth oddly mixed in his intense eyes.
“Murder’s not my style, and I don’t believe in divorce. I’m not going to marry someone, have a child, and let her walk away. The only option I see is not to get married in the first place.”
“You don’t believe it’s possible to have a long and happy marriage?”
He shook his head. “No.”
A look of annoyance crossed his face as he raised an empty glass of whisky to his mouth. “Come on,” he said, gripping her fingers and tugging her back up the hallway toward the main part of the castle. “Talk of marriage and death bores me. I think we should go to the game room—”
“And discuss your proposition.”
He laughed “Aye.”
At last. Business talk. Funny, though, as good as that sounded, she wished they could continue the privately escorted tour, and even more she wished she could continue their private talk, getting to know moreabout his life, what was in the past and what he seemed to see for himself in the future.
Later maybe. After business.
A fire blazed in the game room that had felt so cold the night before, and he led her straight to the windows, which looked over the loch. “Do you fish?”
“I have four brothers,” she said, standing at his side. “I grew up fishing, hunting, camping, and even trying to play sports.”
His gaze raked over the shortness of her body. She couldn’t blame him when he laughed.
“No, I wasn’t good at sports,” she tossed out. “I wanted to play basketball, but oddly enough”—she laughed—“I was told I was too short, and that annoyed my competitive spirit. I couldn’t beat my brothers at anything but poker. I started cooking because that was something they couldn’t do. I wrote the first cookbook to compete with a man who… well, the reason I competed with him doesn’t matter. Let’s just say I’m very good at what I do, I’ve made best-seller lists worldwide, I’ve been on TV shows—and that makes me very happy.”
“You’re not much different from the people in the village. Always trying to beat your neighbor.”
“I like to win.”
“I thought so.” He angled his head toward her and smiled. “Which leads me to my proposition.”
“Does it have anything to do with the photographs I’m going to take?”
“Aye.”
He led her toward a Victorian card table and pulled out a chair. She crossed her legs after she sat down, and smiled. “I’m listening.”
He went across the room and brought back a decanter of whisky and a deck of cards, which he sat on the table between them. Then he took his chair.
“Here’s the deal. We play poker until the stroke of midnight or until one of us has nothing left to wager.”
“And what are we playing for?”
“You win… you can take all the photos you want inside the castle, but they’re for use in your cookbook only. They will not go on the Internet. You cannot sell them to other publications.”
That was good, for a start. “What about the secret room? Is that included?
”
He shook his head. “No. That’s my final word on that subject.”
She gritted her teeth but didn’t argue. “And what do you get if I lose?”
“If I win—and I will”—he grinned—“you move into the castle and cook for me for a month.”
She couldn’t help but laugh at that ridiculous suggestion. “That hardly sounds like a fair exchange. People pay a small fortune to have me as a private chef.”
He shrugged. ‘Take it or leave it.”
Time to bargain.
“One week. Ie’ll buy the food.”
“All right.”
“Don’t agree too quickly.” She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest “I want more than that.”
His brow arched. “What is it you want?”
“I want permission to photograph the interiors in my spare time, I want you to tell me some of the stories that surround the various rooms, and I want to have the right to search for the secret room.”
“In other words, you want to come out the winner even if you lose?”
She smiled. ‘That’s right.”
Colin frowned, obviously contemplating her words, and for a moment she thought he’d call off the whole thing. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and smiled slightly, apparently resigned to her demands. “All right, but the choice of poker games is mine.”
His proposition was far better than anything she’d hoped for except for him leading her straight to the secret bedroom. Of course, this was one game she couldn’t win. No, she’d have to lose, because in the end she’d come out ahead
She reached across the table to shake his hand. It’s a deal.”
He smiled wickedly. “Deal.”
She poured whisky into his glass and hers, then leaned back and took a sip. “How much money are we each putting up? It should be equal so neither of us has the advantage.”
He looked at her over the top of his whisky glass, his eyes dancing with something akin to laughter, and suddenly she knew she’d been conned.
“There’s no money involved, Emily. My game of choice is strip poker.”
4
Emily wasn’t happy. Colin could see it in the way her shoulders tensed, her jaw tightened, and her knuckles turned almost white around her glass. His proposition had been simple; she was the one who threw in all the extra little details that had made losing sound so attractive to her.
My Scottish Summer Page 12
