Stella Cameron

by Fascination

Arran held still. “Is there still pain?”

  “No.” Grace shook her head. “What are we to do now?”

  He smiled, a smile that warmed his green, green eyes. “You will do nothing. I will do everything. Just trust me and very soon you will want me to do it again.”

  She eyed him dubiously.

  Arran began to move, very slowly at first, in and out of her clenching body. In and out whilst she held his arms and watched his face. He smiled again, and she smiled back.

  “Pain?”

  “No. Please don’t stop.”

  He didn’t.

  Grace forgot to hold on, forgot to be frightened. When she closed her eyes, it was with the vision of Arran’s tensed face, the straining of veins at his temples and in his neck.

  Faster and faster he drove into her, and amazingly, the darts of searing heat burst to life again.

  This time, when she cried out she heard, just faintly, Arran’s triumphant shout.

  “Beautiful,” he said in a voice that broke. “You are absolutely beautiful. Perfect. Perfect with me. I can’t believe it.”

  He was still inside her.

  Grace could scarcely breathe at all. She felt hot tears course into her hair. “Good.”

  “And all by chance. You came to me by chance.”

  “I was brought to you deliberately.”

  “Yes.” He laughed, and Grace’s eyes popped wide open at the feeling it caused inside her. “Yes, you were brought to me, but there were no guarantees. I never could have hoped for this.”

  “It was all right, then.”

  “All right?” He pulled her legs down and around his waist and hauled her up into his arms. His hands supported her bottom. “It was fantastic.”

  The hair on his chest teased her sensitive nipples. She brushed back and forth a little, experimenting. So good.

  Arran made a slight adjustment and finally slid out of her.

  “Do you have to do that?” she asked.

  “What?” He strode toward the bedchamber.

  She buried her face in his shoulder. “Take it away.”

  He laughed, and the sound in his throat vibrated. “Not for long. Now I shall do what I should have done before. I’m going to lie with you in my bed.”

  “Oh, good.” Grace twined her arms around his neck and kissed him with all her might. “How exciting. Now you will show me the next thing.”

  “The next thing?” He threw back his counterpane and placed her on the bed.

  “Whatever else husbands and wives do in private. When they are alone? With nobody else—”

  He gave a barking laugh. “You’re amazing. Whatever else? Oh, Grace—Lady Stonehaven—my lady—I do love you.”

  She stopped smiling. Her throat grew tight and her foolish eyes filled with tears once more.

  “I love you, Grace,” he repeated, lifting her against the pillows, lying beside her, stroking her hair.

  “I like what husbands and wives do together,” she finally managed to say.

  Arran frowned. “Is that all you like about being with me?”

  The tears overflowed and she caught her quivering lower lip in her teeth.

  “My sweet,” he said, brushing drops from her cheeks. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “If we’d died in the vaults, we would never have discovered exactly what it is that a man and woman—”

  He groaned and his mouth on hers cut off the rest of what she would have said. “I am truly fascinated by you,” he whispered against her lips.

  “Not as fascinated as I am by you, my lord.” Grace eased away until she could see his face. “You look like a barbarian in a gentleman’s clothing . . . or you do when you’re dressed. I’m in love with a barbarian. Totally, absolutely, completely in love with a barbarian with the face of a dark angel.”

  He chuckled.

  She found that part of him he so enjoyed having held, and noticed that he stopped chuckling.

  Distant noises fingered a path through heavy sleep.

  Pounding.

  Arran opened his eyes in the darkness. The soft nakedness curled into his body was Grace, the softness filling his hand, her breast.

  “Open ...!”

  Someone was pummeling the sitting room door—with both fists by the sound of it.

  Arran became wide-awake. If that was Mortimer, he had badly miscalculated. Easing himself away from Grace, he went swiftly into the sitting room and closed the door to the bedchamber.

  “Arran? Arran, are you in there? In God’s name, answer me.”

  Calum. Relief swamped Arran. Not bothering to cover himself, he went to fling the door open.

  “Thank the Lord,” Calum said, and looked from Arran’s face to points much lower. “I take it congratulations are in order?”

  “Remind me to give you a medal one day,” Arran said. “For your incredibly good taste. Now, enough said on that topic. What’s happened?”

  “You’d better come with me now. Struan’s standing guard over Mortimer.”

  Arran turned away and snatched up trousers. In seconds he was more or less dressed and following Calum through the castle. He asked no more questions, and Calum offered no comments.

  At the entrance to the corridor leading to Mortimer’s rooms, Arran stopped. “Hell’s teeth,” he said under his breath.

  “Arran!” Mortimer’s voice came to him from a doorway where Struan stood with a pistol in his hand. “Arran, speak to them. Make them let me go to her.”

  “He hasn’t made a damned bit of sense yet,” Calum said.

  Arran looked not at Calum, or Struan—or Mortimer. The ghastly sight that squeezed his gut was what had once been Melony Pincham.

  In death, her face drained of all natural color, she was an overly rouged woman with garish red hair. She lay on her side in an impossibly bowed arch, her stomach thrust forward, her feet and head thrown back.

  “She took a shot in the back,” Calum said tonelessly.

  Struan held up the pistol. With his free arm he restrained Mortimer’s feeble efforts to rush at Arran. “Evidently she tried to shoot him with this.”

  “She tried to shoot me,” Mortimer wailed. “She’s mad.”

  “Was mad,” Calum corrected dispassionately.

  “In the struggle, Melony was shot instead,” Struan said.

  Arran looked at the corpse. “Accidentally? In the back?”

  “In the head first,” Struan said. “Evidently she fell on him, and that’s when the second shot hit her back.”

  “She wouldn’t let me go to her,” Mortimer said. His eyes wandered vaguely from Melony’s body to Arran’s face. “Said she’d drowned you and Grace. Said she did it all for me. Can you credit that? I just wanted Kirkcaldy. Never wanted you dead. Wouldn’t have gone that far.”

  “I’m touched.”

  A sudden, wild cry erupted from Mortimer. He rushed forward, arms flailing. Struan moved to stop him, but Arran waved his brother aside.

  “I’ve got to go to her,” Mortimer screamed. “I’ve got to go to Theodora.”

  Arran looked to Struan and Calum, but they both shook their heads.

  “Melony killed Theodora in the vaults.” Mortimer, feet bare, shirttail flapping, ran past. “She killed my lovie.”

  Epilogue

  October 1822. Kirkcaldy Castle, Scotland

  “Amighty, monstrous excess of a place,” Arran said, standing beside Allegro. “That’s what my father called it. And his father before him.”

  Grace, sitting sidesaddle on her amiable chestnut, eased her position and reached her gloved hand toward her husband. “Didn’t they like the castle?”

  He wound their fingers together. “They loved it. We all have, for as long as there have been Stonehavens here. I imagine it was their way of pretending nonchalance.”

  “How foolish.” From their spot at the edge of a stand of massive beeches, they looked across the valley at Kirkcaldy’s imposing bulk.

  “Men can be foolish,” Arran said, a
nd quickly added, “on very rare occasions.”

  Grace laughed lightly, reveling in her surroundings. The beech leaves were turning the glorious shade of orange that heralded winter’s first quickening. She studied her husband with loving concentration. Today there was some news to share, news that would make him happy, she knew. But he was preoccupied, and she must be certain he did not fail to tell her why before she completely distracted him.

  “Calum sent word.”

  Ah. Grace bent to kiss Arran’s fingers, to press them against her cheek.

  He raised troubled eyes to hers and turned up the corners of his marvelous mouth. “Sometimes I think you feel my very heart—how it beats—how it hurts.”

  “Is Calum well?”

  “Well enough, but angry, I think. He’s in Cornwall.”

  “Cornwall?” Grace echoed in surprise. “So far? I thought he remained in Edinburgh.”

  “Evidently he has made a discovery.”

  “Oh, Arran!” Excitement bubbled in Grace. “He knows who he really is?”

  “Perhaps. He did not exactly tell me the details of his findings. But he is not happy, my love, and when Calum isn’t happy, it’s hard for me not to feel the anguish with him.”

  “Should you like to go to him?”

  “No. He would not want that.” He smiled, pulled her head down until he could kiss her soundly, then turned to swing into his saddle. “Let us return to Kirkcaldy. Already the afternoons seem more chill.”

  They rode awhile in silence. The breeze whipped at Arran’s hair, and his proud profile was sharp against a brittle blue sky. The scent of coming winter was in the air.

  “I think we should warm ourselves, my lady.”

  Grace ducked her head and smiled. “Warm ourselves?”

  “Yes, yes. I fear I have developed a terrible weakness. More an addiction, really, for becoming warm with you. Being close to you—simply seeing you—or even thinking about you, causes an overwhelming desire to strip away your clothes and do all the wonderful things you make so very pleasurable.”

  “Arran!” She glanced around. “Hush. You should not speak so when someone might overhear.”

  “Who might overhear?” He also looked around at moorland and wood, at soft hill and gentle valley and the clusters of buildings where his tenants lived and worked—and laughed and cried and loved. “I think I may speak safely, madam wife. I lust after your body.”

  “Arran!”

  “You don’t lust after mine?”

  Grace trotted the chestnut a few yards before smiling back at Arran. “Yes, I do. Race you home!”

  The chestnut was game, but within seconds Allegro galloped alongside and Arran had to hold him back from running ahead of the smaller animal.

  “How do you think Roger does?” Arran called.

  “Well,” Grace said. “He’s a dear boy. I’m so glad you insisted upon keeping him with us.”

  “He has an aptitude for figures. It’ll make him useful to me one day—since everyone else I trusted deserted me.”

  Calum and Struan. How Arran missed his brother and his best friend. “Have you heard news of Mortimer’s progress in the Indies?”

  “Very little, except that he’s apparently consoling his loss of Theodora with the charming daughter of another planter.”

  “I hope he is happier.”

  “As usual, you are too generous. I’d have called him out if you hadn’t intervened.”

  “He’d suffered enough,” Grace shouted. “And he didn’t have anything to do with the things Melony ... She acted alone.” Her jaws tightened as they always did when she remembered the horrors of that awful night.

  A hard gallop brought them to the fortifying wall at the base of Kirkcaldy’s mound. Arran raced through first, drew up, and wheeled around to await Grace.

  As she joined him, a figure in a flapping gray cloak hurried from the nearby gatekeeper’s lodgings.

  “Arran,” Grace cried. “Look. It’s Struan.”

  In an instant Arran was off his horse and striding to embrace his brother. The two laughed and thumped backs and then simply clung to each other.

  “Damn, but it’s good to see you,” Arran said at last. “You took off with barely a word, and there’s been barely a word from you since.”

  “I had matters to attend,” Struan said, walking toward Grace. He placed his hands at her waist and lifted her to the ground. “Let me look at you, little sister. Yes, you are even more beautiful than before. This marriage is agreeing with you, and well it should if I am not to rattle your husband’s teeth.”

  “Hah!” Arran clapped Struan’s shoulders—and frowned. “You look different.”

  “I’ve been in Dorset,” Struan said, as if answering a question. “I came by a small holding there some years ago, and I’ve been putting it into proper order. Now I’d like to help at Kirkcaldy awhile, if that would suit you.”

  Arran’s lips had parted and remained so.

  “When I returned early in the year, I intended to speak to you of these matters, but there were certain other ... well, you were otherwise occupied, and I wanted to do nothing to interfere with that.”

  Arran’s mouth snapped shut.

  “We are so happy you’ve come back,” Grace said. She scowled at Arran. “Aren’t we, Stonehaven?”

  “She always calls me Stonehaven when she’s out of sorts with me,” Arran said plaintively. “She can be a very hard woman.”

  “No doubt.”

  “You want to come back to Kirkcaldy?”

  “Yes.”

  Arran ran his fingers through his hair. “What of your calling? How does the church view lengthy absences on the part of her priests?”

  “When I came before, I intended to speak of this.”

  “So you said.”

  “I am not a priest.”

  Grace paused in the act of stroking the chestnut’s neck.

  Arran appeared bemused. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “I left the priesthood three years ago.”

  “And you never said a word until today?” Arran thundered.

  “Don’t shout at me, you arrogant bastard,” Struan roared in response. “The reason I let you keep on thinking I was wedded to the church was because if I hadn’t, you might never have married again after Isabel. You were so filled with rage and self-pity that you wanted to shut yourself away with your precious music and foresake the world.”

  “You lied to me.” Arran’s jaw jutted.

  Struan’s chin matched his brother’s. “I didn’t lie. I merely failed to give you certain information. I decided that if I did not hide the fact that I was no longer a priest, you would step back and wait for me to marry and produce a Stonehaven heir for you. I wanted you to find your own happiness, you cabbagehead! I wanted you to learn to love.”

  Arran raised his fists, and let them drop to his sides. He looked at Grace, held an arm toward her.

  She hurried to him and flinched at the power of his embrace.

  “Seeing the two of you together makes me very happy,” Struan told them quietly. He stroked a blond curl away from Grace’s face. “I’m not too sorry I deceived the two of you. It was worth it to see how you are together. Can I be of service to you, Arran?”

  “By heaven, can you be of service?” Arran grinned and his eyes glittered with satisfaction. “As of this moment you are my right hand and my left.”

  “I’m so happy you’ve returned,” Grace said, making up her mind to say what she was bursting to say. “And I have something to tell, too. Arran is to have an heir—in early spring of next year. There. What do you think of that?”

  “Wonderful,” Struan said. He kissed Grace’s cheek and shot a hand in Arran’s direction. “Congratulations, brother. Many congratulations.”

  Arran didn’t seem to notice Struan’s hand. “I’m going to have an heir,” he said as if trying out the words for texture and sound. “I’m going to have an heir. I’m going to have an heir!
” With a whoop, he swept Grace from the ground and whirled her around.

  She laughed down into his face and then shrieked with excitement.

  Arran frowned, caught her up into his arms, and studied her closely. “Do you feel well? Did you call in the physician? We must ensure an appropriate nanny is engaged forthwith. And a tutor. Yes, a tutor must be chosen with great care.”

  Grace caught Struan’s eye and they chuckled. “Perhaps we should attend to the birth before the tutor,” she suggested.

  “You did not tell me,” Arran said suddenly, and glared. “You did not tell me, and when you did, it was in front of my treacherous brother.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not sorry at all. “It seemed the appropriate moment.”

  “A man who posed as a priest.”

  “I did not pose,” Struan said mildly. “I merely failed to deny that I was a priest.”

  “You wore clerical garb.”

  Struan crossed his arms and rolled onto his toes. “I wore conservative garb.”

  Gently Grace threaded one arm through Arran’s and one through Struan’s and let their deep voices rumble over her head.

  Her hair shone silver in the candlelight. With difficulty, Arran stopped himself from leaving the piano and going to take her into his arms. They’d left his bed barely an hour since, and she was still flushed from their lovemaking.

  “What shall I play for you?” he asked.

  “Surprise me.” She leaned over one of her delightfully awful paintings, her brow puckered in concentration.

  The melody of “Grace” flowed automatically from his fingers, and their eyes met. She set down her palette and brush and came to stand beside him.

  “This has been a perfect day,” she said. “I’m so glad Struan has come back to us—even if only for a while. He ought to marry and have children of his own.”

  “Yes.” He stopped playing and raised her hands to his lips. “Our child will be lovely. As lovely as you are.”

  “Stop flattering me and play.”

  Arran kissed her fingers slowly, one by one, and turned on the bench. He pulled her between his knees and studied her face. “I can never flatter you enough.”

  “Stop.” Her smile slipped away. “I love you, Arran.”